FOR: The Spirits Within (The House)
by sakayume
Summary: The Jyuushinshuu members and some other Uruha are sent to investigate a 'haunted' mansion... with disaster ensuing. Co-written with Tsurugi-chan.
1. Chapter 1

[ O c e a n S t a r . . . V e r s i o n 2.0 ]

** **

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: None of the characters used here belong to us (duh!). They were just borrowed without permission for entertainment (and torture) purposes.

Last Revised: 18/07/2001

**| Chapter 1 |**

Mori Kouran stared across his desk at his adopted son. "I've got a little task for your Uruha to carry out. However, make sure they don't leave a mess behind like they did the last time." 'And the time before that, and the time before *that* too. Hell, they've *always* been messing up,' Mori Kouran thought darkly.

Kurei replied icily, "They're trained to obey orders, not pick up after each other."

Mori Kouran sighed and said, "Just make sure they do the job and do it well."

*Sometime later in the Uruha mansion* A hybrid of Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare was going on in the basement. Neon crossed her fingers and spun the bottle, hoping fervently that it would not land at a certain horny and woody pervert or a certain ecchi old man. But, as luck would have it, it was precisely at the aforesaid person, aka: Mokuren that the bottle wound up pointing at. Neon cursed her luck as she asked him indifferently, "So, truth or dare?"

When he replied, "Truth." Neon started to feel slightly uneasy. After all, what "secrets" did that lunatic have that she was simply dying to hear? Answer: NONE.

"Err...okay, Mokuren..." Neon was at a loss as to what to say. She glanced desperately around the room trying to think up of a 'safe' question, one that would not entail any hentai answers. She did *not* like the way Mokuren was staring at her.

The door opened just then to reveal Kurei. The plastic bottle immediately disappeared as the Uruha pretended to be busy doing other things. Their employer, Kurei, did not approve of such gatherings, especially during the day.

"Err...Kurei-sama..."

Kurei glared at the Uruha members seated in a rough circle on the floor. "Mori Kouran wants us to investigate a supposedly haunted mansion."

The Uruha members, mostly from the Jyuushinshuu with the exception of Kirin and said horny woody pervert just looked at Kurei blankly.

"Why the hell does Mori-sama want us to investigate a *house*?" Mikoto asked disdainfully. "I have *much* better things to do!"

"Really? Like what? Improving your personality maybe?" Joker asked innocently before catching sight of a certain poisoned fingernail coming his way. Of course, he had a little common sense to know when to shut up.

Neon asked curiously, "Kurei-sama, why does he want us to investigate a haunted house for? I mean, what use does Mori-sama have with ghosts and stuff like that?"

Kurei glanced at her briefly before replying, "How am I supposed to know? If you're ordered to do something, just do it and stop asking me questions!"

"WHAT!!! YOU MEAN WE REALLY HAVE TO GO FIND GHOSTS?!?!?!" Aki and Miki screeched together. The Uruha had found the perfect pair to represent their sentiments exactly. Kirin was starting to get a headache from the large amount of thoughts, belonging to other people, about haunted houses going through her head, thanks to her Shingan.

Mikoto snorted, "There are no such things as ghosts, baka!"

"No, no, don't say such things! The ghosts will get you!" Aki shouted at Mikoto.

"Where exactly is this house?" Genjurou, the only calm (relatively) person in the room asked. He too was getting a headache from all the shouting and screaming. Of course, he did not believe in ghosts either, but was too wise to announce the fact to Aki and Miki who were obviously afraid. His eardrums had taken more than enough damage, thank you very much.

Kurei handed him a small, dirty and torn piece of paper. "Everyone in this room is going, so get a move on!"

The moment their employer left the room, the Uruha burst into protest at the injustice of sending a highly skilled professional assassin group off to chase ghosts. It was of the general opinion that time could be better spent at the Uruha mansion practicing...uh, actually playing Tekken and DOA on the Playstation, or having illicit gatherings. After all, illicit gatherings gave them a chance to practice their stealth techniques and manipulating the controllers required a certain level of finger dexterity.

Joker decided to make the best of things. "Hey, Neon-han, does this mission mean you're going to dress up as Lara Croft in the hot shorts and..." A well-aimed blow knocked out the fanged assassin, albeit temporarily. Still, it was better than nothing.

Genjurou stared at the piece of paper, trying to decipher what was scrawled on it. Of course, he did not want to admit that his eyesight was failing, but the writing really was illegible. He turned it over in hope that the address was written on the other side. Kirin sensed his problem and decided to be a kind soul for once, i.e.: pretending to be "oh-so-excited" about going on a ghost-hunt and snatching the paper away from him.

"The haunted house is in DISNEYLAND?!?!?!" She screeched in amazement. The assassins jawdropped at this announcement and stared, or rather, glared, daggers at the poor girl.

"Er, Kirin, are you *sure* you got the address right?" She heard Rasen ask mentally.

"Oops, gomen. the house is *near* Disneyland, not *in* Disneyland." Kirin was sweatdropping profusely under the pressure of the glares coming from the woody pervert and his *ahem* girlfriend.

Rasen just *looked* at Kirin and took the piece of paper. He turned it over and over carefully. The paper itself was thin and grimy. To make it worse, the address was written in pencil and the lettering had faded. Bringing the paper closer, he could barely decipher the illegible handwriting. The house was *not* anywhere near Disneyland, contrary to what Kirin had said.

"Er... Rasen says the haunted house is about two hours outside Tokyo. In other words, it's in the middle of nowhere," Kirin reported. She left out Rasen's comment on how she ought to brush up on her reading skills. Rasen could be really mean sometimes.

The rest of the Jyuushinshuu sighed.

"I know!" Neon began brightly, "let's have a picnic after the mission. I'll prepare the food!"

The Uruha sighed and sweatdropped as they watched Neon head off to the kitchen. Even Shiju would not touch Neon's cooking... and he would eat anything.

"Great, now we not only have a spasticated mission, but we also have Neon's cooking to deal with," Jisho said gloomily, effectively summing up everyone else's thoughts.

"......" was Noroi's reply. But then, the thing did not really talk.

The remaining Uruha gave the masked body a wide berth.

"Did Kurei-han say we had to go *today*?" Joker asked as he regained consciousness. "Hey, where's Neon-han?"

TBC…

Author's note: Yay! Part one of our first serious (relatively) fic completed! Okay, this part is quite crap… and it's not really very serious, is it? Sorry, if the story seems cliché or anything, we were pretty low on inspiration when we wrote it. As to why Mori Kouran would want a haunted house investigated… *shrugs* I have no idea. I couldn't think of anything better. By the way, it is not going to turn into a crap fic… hopefully. Hmm… in case you were wondering, En wrote the beginning and I edited it and changed some parts because she had didn't want to start. The hybrid of 'spin the bottle' and 'truth or dare' is her invention. Duh! It's so… En. J

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	2. Chapter 2

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: None of the characters used here belong to us (duh!). They were just borrowed without permission for entertainment (and torture) purposes.

Last Revised: 18/07/2001

**| Chapter 2 |**

"Tell me again what the hell I'm doing stuck in this horrible old bus next to, of all people and things, Noroi," Joker whined to Raiha as he scooted away from the freaky, not to mention stinky, thing.

Raiha laughed. Joker scowled at the purple-haired ninja who was sitting beside Neon across the aisle from Joker and his interesting seatmate.

"Who's driving this bus?" Kirin asked, looking rather green. She and Mokuren were the only non-Jyuushinshuu members who were taking part in this mission.

"Rasen."

Kirin shuddered as the bus swerved violently to the right, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car. "He never got his license, you know?"

Damn," replied Neon who was beginning to look a little green too. Raiha inched away from her as Kirin buried her head in a plastic bag.

"Er, Rasen, do you mind letting someone else who actually *knows* how to drive take over?" Genjurou asked feebly. Even the tough old man was having problems keeping his breakfast down. The fact that Neon had cooked it did not help very much.

"Rasen says that he's clocked quite a few hours on the Daytona machines so he can manage," Kirin informed everyone weakly as the bus swerved again. "I THINK I'M GOING TO BE SICK!!!"

Everyone thanked their lucky stars that Kirin had a bag ready, otherwise she would have added a big mess to the already chaotic bus. Amidst all the moaning and groaning, Kurei was the only one who looked vaguely composed. But, then again, the guy had his mask on, so it was pretty hard to tell what he was feeling.

Joker had managed to squash himself into Raiha's seat, such that the poor ninja was sandwiched between the lunatic and the redhead, in order to get away from Noroi. He confided in Raiha, "You know, maybe we should hatch a plot to get Rasen abducted or something so that we won't have to be at the mercy of his driving."

Raiha raised an eyebrow at him. "And who's going to drive? You? If that were the case, I'd rather walk. So shut up and get back to your seat. I can't breathe with you sitting half on top of me!" He gave his poor colleague a shove that landed Joker almost on top of the stinky corpse. A scream was added on to the noise on the bus...

"Wow, Joker-san, I never knew you could reach that pitch!" Mikoto complimented as she paused doing *ahem* unspeakable and unimaginable things to Mokuren at the back of the bus.

"Raiha-han..." Joker glared at the oblivious purple-haired ninja. Genjurou sighed and muttered something about 'delusional teammates, young people and disrespect'.

The bus gave another violent swerve and the Uruha temporarily forgot all about Genjurou and his mutters as there was a mad rush for Kirin's plastic bag.

The rest of the bus ride passed uneventfully (relatively). Remember this was the Uruha we were talking about. Uneventfully meant the odd scream and screech every few minutes, odd sounds from the back of the bus, utter chaos, and more mad rushes for the sick bag. Luckily, no one was maimed, knocked out or killed in the process.

"I am never going to ride a bus anymore!" Neon declared as she stepped off the bus thankfully.

"I'm too old for such things," Genjurou added as he ambled off the bus slowly. He was still a little green from the roller coaster bus ride.

"Rasen can't drive to save his life!" Joker griped.

Rasen stared at him. Joker laughed nervously and tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. Kurei glared impartially at everyone.

"Ano... Neon-san, what is that?" Raiha asked, indicating the large basket that Neon was lugging off the bus.

"*huff* *puff* That's our LUNCH!!!"

There was a unanimous shout of despair from the mottled crew gathered around the bus.

"Arghhh!!! It's Neon's cooking! Someone save me!" Joker cried melodramatically. Needless to say, he found himself embedded *very* deeply in a tree trunk. It took the combined efforts of Raiha, Kirin and Jisho to pull him out and restore him to some semblance of his original appearance (he'd been squashed flatter than a pancake). The rest of the Uruha simply could not be bothered.

Neon dusted her hands off as she put the finishing touches to the, er, *very* interesting picnic spread. "Hey! Where's everybody?"

"WE'RE NOT HUNGRY!" came the reply as the Uruha scrambled off to get away from the food. As usual, Kurei couldn't be bothered about them. Also, since he had never tasted Neon's cooking before, he did not know what "secrets" and "dangers" it held. He took a bite out of a sandwich... and spat it out almost immediately.

Neon was hurt. "Kurei-sama, is something wrong?"

Kurei just got up and walked off to join the rest of his employees." Nothing, just not hungry."

After the "lunch break", everyone piled back into the bus. This time, Kirin had managed to convince Rasen to let someone else drive. Joker had volunteered himself to get out of sitting next to Noroi, and for a while, the Uruha thought they could trust him to drive safely, if not, sanely.

*5 minutes after hitting the road* "Joker, do you mind stopping us at the next bus stop, if we ever get there that is?" Raiha asked in as patient a voice he could muster.

"Why?"

"Because we'd rather walk than sit in this @#$* bus with you as the driver!"

Joker looked up from trying to find the ignition hole to put the key in. "Hee hee, gomen, I'm too used to teleporting. I haven't driven a car for a long time. Can someone tell me where the key goes?"

Numerous deadly flying objects came flying at the hapless assassin." Forget it! Rasen! Take over please!"

Kirin and Neon turned pale at the suggestion. Kirin asked Neon mentally, "Can you tell me which is worse, being driven by someone who can't drive or having someone who can drive but can't start the bus?"

Neon replied, "Both." They settled back for a long and bumpy ride, courtesy of Rasen.

TBC…

Author's note: Let me crap about stuff that has nothing to do with this fic… well not really. I'm bored and hyper now… not a good combination. ^_^ It's one of the symptoms of the En and Ning disease, being hyper that is. Anyway, it's all En's fault, I caught the disease from her. ^_^ Well, at least I stay awake in class now. Speaking of which, En is now known as 'Okama-san' or 'the Okama one', and also referred to as 'shim Okama-ness'. ^_^ I hope she doesn't kill me for this.

Anyway, I started playing FFVII again! It's absolutely the best RPG! Too bad school started… I have less time to play because I'm supposed to study for the exams. Ughh… this is probably like the third time I'm playing FFVII. I haven't completed it yet, but I keep stopping and restarting because I have no idea where I stopped. I do that with practically every RPG. I tried playing FFV again recently (I'm somewhere on the 2nd world), and I had no idea what to do. Too bad our plan to get En to play FFVII fell through.

This part was pretty crap. But I really enjoyed writing it, especially the bus ride. I think Neon's cooking skills were too exaggerated… I mean, she can't cook as bad as Miaka. And Miaka poisoned Tamahome with her cooking. Oh well.

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	3. Chapter 3

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: None of the characters used here belong to us (duh!). They were just borrowed without permission for entertainment (and torture) purposes.

Last Revised: 18/07/2001

**| Chapter 3 |**

"At last!" Joker exclaimed as he stepped off the bus. "So where's that house?"

The Uruha sweatdropped and pointed toward a long, winding and overgrown path in front of them. The path led through thick, overgrown shrubs. It was impossible to see where the path led as the shrubs obscured one's vision.

"Look! Blueberries! I'm starving!" Kirin shouted as she dashed toward the shrubs and plucked a handful of the delicious berries, which she crammed into her mouth.

Neon glared at her friend and fellow Uruha member. "I thought you weren't hungry."

The next moment, Neon was standing alone as everyone else was helping themselves to the juicy wild berries. She sweatdropped and fumed. Hmph. Even her Kurei-sama was eating those blueberries.

Raiha suddenly pulled out some *real* food that he must have brought from the Uruha mansion. "I knew this would happen and I didn't want to eat Neon-san's cooking."

A few seconds later, the bus and the surrounding area were mostly deserted as the hungry Uruha members chased after the poor ninja in a bid to steal his food. Neon was chasing after the ninja too, but only because she wanted to torture and kill him for insulting her wonderful cooking skills.

"Hn." Kurei was the only one left after his Uruha had taken off. He was beginning to agree with Mori Kouran on the point that the Uruha were incompetent, and he hated it. He was also beginning to get a headache. It was a good thing that he had had the foresight to bring along one whole bottle of aspirin. Sighing, he set off after his Uruha.

Meanwhile, the chase had led the Uruha up the path. The path itself wound around a hill. The mansion was supposed to be located at the peak of the hill. As the starving Uruha chased Raiha, they failed to notice that the sky had become overcast as black storm clouds covered the sun, which had, just a moment ago, been shining brightly. They also failed to notice the lightning in the sky and the increasingly strong wind that howled through the trees on the hill.

"Hey! Where are we?" Kirin asked in amazement. The Uruha had finally reached the top of the hill after their, er, race with Raiha. Neon had managed to catch him and was presently beating the crap out of him. As for the food... let's just say it had conveniently disappeared into a bottomless pit called "Raiha's stomach" somewhere on the way up.

"Hmm, I don't remember it being so dark just now, it looks like it's going to rain." Mikoto commented as she clung onto Mokuren's arm. Kurei strolled uninterestedly onto the scene, only to find the "professional assassin group" engaged in various activities very unbecoming to their "fearsome" reputations. For example, Neon was jumping up and down on a purple and blue blob that could once have been a certain purple-haired ninja; Mikoto and Mokuren were doing what they usually did best together, etc, etc.

"Wow! Look at that big old house! It sure looks freaky and scary..." Kirin observed as she tried to inch behind Rasen, who promptly stepped away from her. He did not need anyone clinging onto him at the present moment.

"That's the mansion Mori-sama was talking about. We'll be staying in it for the duration of the mission, so somebody go down and get the bags." Kurei's voice came from behind her. Kirin jumped. She had been too busy gaping at the house to sense him coming.

"Kurei-sama, you're not kidding are you? We've got to stay in THAT place?" Joker chipped in playfully. Kurei *looked* at him.

"OK then, I'll just pop down and get our stuff. My madougo sure can come in handy at times..." Joker's voice trailed off as he stared at the dense undergrowth surrounding them. "What happened to the path we came up by?"

"That's strange, I could've sworn it was right here a minute ago." Neon had apparently satisfied her violent nature, judging from Raiha's shape, appearance and state. "It couldn't have just disappeared like that, could it?"

"Itai..." Raiha winced as he rubbed the bumps on his head. "Neon-san, you're right. There's no path."

The Uruha exchanged looks. There was something going on, although whether it was actually the supernatural at work was open to question. Most of the Uruha were staunch supporters of the 'there is no such thing as ghosts' faction.

"What are we going to do, Kurei-sama?" Neon asked rather uncertainly. The place gave her the creeps and she was not the only one. Even the normally outrageously cheerful Joker was rather subdued.

As the Uruha watched and waited for an answer, or at least some indication of one, a brilliant bolt of lightning flashed across the black sky. A few of the Uruha shivered as the wind whipped around them with renewed force. The only one who seemed impervious to the surrounding atmosphere was Noroi... but that was expected. It *was* dead, after all.

Whatever answer Kurei might have given was drowned out by the sudden, loud clap of thunder. The Uruha jumped in spite of themselves. Kirin once again tried to inch closer to Rasen, but this time he did not pull away. Genjurou muttered something about the weather being bad for his rheumatism.

"Ano... Kurei-sama, what were you saying?" Raiha asked again. Even he was looking distinctly unsettled.

"It looks like I can't get our stuff anymore..." Joker eyed the overgrowth and the area the path was supposed to have been.

"But what are we going to do?!" Kirin wailed as she inched even closer to Rasen, who gave an insufferable sigh. Well, at least she was not clinging onto him... *yet*.

"Er... where's Mikoto and Mokuren?" Jisho asked. This was probably the first sentence he had uttered since they had left the Uruha mansion.

The remaining Uruha looked around.

"They seem to have... disappeared," Neon replied in a hushed voice.

"Oh well... who cares?" the fanged one shrugged and grinned. "They weren't exactly very useful either."

Joker just *narrowly* avoided the doukumashin as Mikoto and Mokuren immerged from the bushes. What they were doing, you would not want to know... well, at least it proved that nobody was missing.

"Continue to the mansion. We have to finish this mission," Kurei ordered his assassins as he glared at them. He thought his Uruha were behaving rather irrationally.

The Uruha trooped obediently toward the mansion, with Noroi in the lead and Rasen not far behind. Considering that a mask did not have feelings and Rasen had lost his, it was not surprising. The two did not know the meaning of the word 'fear'. Kirin, who was last, eyed the mansion with distaste. It looked black in the prevailing gloom, and the Victorian architecture was... well, the house was in an irreparable state of disrepair.

TBC…

Author's note: I just wish Mikoto and Mokuren had really disappeared. But we need them for later parts of the story which is fast turning into an epic. Maybe they can disappear later… hmm… *thoughtful pose*

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	4. Chapter 4

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: None of the characters used here belong to us (duh!). They were just borrowed without permission for entertainment (and torture) purposes.

Last Revised: 18/07/2001

**| Chapter 4 |**

The door swung open slowly, creaking and groaning on its rusty hinges. Swirls of dust could be seen rising into the air as the Uruha stepped cautiously into the hall. There were cobwebs hanging from the banisters and ceiling. Kirin shuddered. "Must we really stay in this place? It gives me the creeps!"

Just as Kirin stepped through the door, an exceptionally strong gust of wind swept through the house, slamming the door shut with a crash. For a few moments, there was utter chaos as the Uruha were left in the darkness of a supposedly haunted house.

"AARRGGHHH!!! WE'RE LOCKED OUT!!! I mean, IN!"

"Who just groped me? If that's you Joker, you better start saying your prayers!" *crash!*

"Ouch! Neon-san, what was that for? I didn't do anything!"

"Oops! Gomen, Raiha! If that wasn't you, then who was it?"

Kurei sighed and shook his head. He was starting to doubt the sanity of the Uruha. They were behaving like a bunch of kids who were scared of the dark. He raised his voice to make himself heard above the din.

"Will all of you shut up and LISTEN TO ME!!!" *silence* "Whoever's closest to the door, pull it open. The rest of you, stop acting like a bunch of idiots!"

Jisho tugged at the door in vain. It was stuck tight. "Kurei-sama, I can't get the door open. I think it's stuck."

Kurei rolled his eyes. It seemed as though Jisho was the only one, besides Rasen and Noroi, who was actually calm. "OK, does anyone have a light?" There was a general murmur of "no" coming from various parts of the room. He thought to himself, "Hopefully, I won't burn the place down by doing this. Then again, if it *does* burn down, I won't have to listen to this loony bunch anymore!"

The Uruha heard his bangles clink gently together as he said, "Those around me, stand further away." A purple flame shot upwards out of his hand as Kurenai appeared. The flame illuminated the surroundings clearly and the Uruha got their first good look at the haunted mansion.

What they saw did nothing to allay whatever fears they had. They were gathered in a small hallway that led into many other rooms. The doors, however, were all closed. The decor of the house dated from the Victorian era and everywhere there was a layer of dust few inches thick. No one had been in the house for years. Eerily lifelike portraits of men and women in old-fashioned costumes adorned the paneled walls. One thing was obvious. The house had definitely belonged to someone with expensive taste, considering  the rather excessive amount of gilded furniture. A chandelier was swinging from the ceiling.

Jisho tried the door again, then shook his head. "It's no use, Kurei-sama, the door is stuck."

"Damn," Mokuren muttered. "I'm stuck in here with a bunch of loony idiots... eep!"

Mokuren was the focus of everyone's glares. Kurei contemplated burning him but decided it was a waste of energy. Besides, Mokuren's ashes might be poisonous and toxic.

"The... the chandelier... it's MOVING!" Kirin pointed out as she backed away from it, and just *happened* to bump into Rasen. "Ahh... gomen, Rasen."

Genjurou sighed and cursed the ignorance of youth, "It's *just* the *wind*!"

Kirin, and some of the other Uruha, did not look convinced. How could there be wind in an enclosed house?

Genjurou sighed again. This was getting on his nerves. "There's no such thing as ghosts, okay?!"

Whatever else he might have said was drowned out by the chandelier suddenly crashing down onto the floor, causing them to jump back in surprise and shock.

"AAAHHHHHHHH!!!" Kirin jumped into Rasen's arms a la Scooby Doo.

The Uruha thanked their battle-sharpened reflexes that none of them had gotten hurt.

"Err..." Genjurou was at a loss for words, especially after Raiha had examined the remains of the chandelier and proclaimed that it had been cut.

Kurei continued glaring at everyone. "Continue with the mission. Split up into pairs and get moving. Investigate the *whole* mansion."

The Uruha muttered uneasily and instinctively moved closer to each other, driven by some primal instinct that there was safety in numbers. Kurei glared at them again and threatened them with Kurenai. The Uruha immediately decided that they would rather face ghosts and the supernatural over Kurenai, any day. Kurenai was plain freaky. Besides, being fried was *not* a nice sensation.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Get moving!" Kurei snapped at them.

"Er, Kurei-sama, our night vision isn't exactly very wonderful..."Joker volunteered in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. Kurei and Kurenai turned to face him. He sweatdropped. It was quite obvious Kurei was getting irritated. "What I mean is, we don't have lights so we can't see where we... ack!"

A flood of electric lights suddenly came on, making the hall seem less spooky in the harsh brightness. Joker turned and glared at Kirin, who was standing next to the wall. She grinned at him, saying, "I found the light switch!"

"Does that answer your problem? Now MOVE!" Kurenai disappeared as Kurei turned away. The Uruha grumbled to themselves as they split up into pairs. Mikoto was, as usual, with Mokuren; Genjurou decided to go with Noroi since "it" could not talk, therefore, "it" would not give him any trouble; Rasen was with Kirin since she was the only one who could tell what he was saying; Joker paired himself up with Raiha in hope that the ninja might have some food left over from just now and also because Neon absolutely refused to have anything to do with him; Neon contemplated asking Kurei to go with her and decided against it as he seemed to be in a bad mood, so she had to go with Jisho since he was the only one left.

Pair by pair, the Uruha left the hallway in different directions to check out the mansion, leaving Kurei by himself in the middle of the hall. He heard Kurenai say, "Aren't you afraid to be left alone in a place like this? Also, you didn't have to be so fierce with them."

Kurei growled, "What do you expect? They really *are* a bunch of loony idiots! Of course I don't want to go with any of them, besides, I'm not afraid of ghosts. I don't even think they exist!"

Kurenai laughed. "Suit yourself then." They set off down a passageway.

TBC…

Author's note: I honestly have nothing to say about this part except that the chandelier thing was very cliché. It's still not serious, and I don't think it'll ever become a serious fic, considering the fact that the two authors are major nutcases. By the way, En and I never got round to doing those counseling sessions at the MIE. We were supposed to counsel each other. ^_^ Speaking of the MIE, it's a wonder that the ministry of health doesn't dump En in jail. The 'poor' (not really) inmates of the MIE are just dumped there and left alone. En doesn't even bother to counsel them or anything. All she does is release them when we want to write a fic. ^_^ To quote En, she has too many problems to be attending to the problems of nutcases like the chicken head. They're all probably mental problems… eep! I think she's seriously going to kill me after she's read this. ^_^

The idea of Kurenai talking to Kurei was all En's idea. But it makes stuff much more interesting. I seriously don't think Kurei would talk to himself. ^_^

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	5. Chapter 5

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: None of the characters used here belong to us (duh!). They were just borrowed without permission for entertainment (and torture) purposes.

Last Revised: 18/07/2001

**| Chapter 5 |**

"I say we go this way."

"No, we should go this way."

"Trust me, this way is better. My intuition tells me so and I'm always right."

"Gr… you really drive me mad, you know."

Neon and Jisho were in the midst of an argument over which corridor to take. Sadly for them, there was no Raiha to break up the fight that was about to happen. Finally, Neon came up with a brilliant idea.

"Ok, let's toss a coin. Heads, we go my way; tails, we go yours."

So, they tossed a coin. It landed on a crack so that it was upright. In other words, it did not solve the problem.

"ARGHHH!!!"

Jisho covered his ears. "Shut up, onna! And you should have just followed me instead!"

*whack*

"Why can't you just go my way?! I'm sure it's this way!" Neon pointed emphatically to the left as she stamped her foot.

"What makes you so sure? I say it's the right!"

"It's the left, dammnit!"

"What would you know about such stuff? You're just a stupid onna!" Jisho glared at Neon.

"Stop being a male chauvinist pig! You're beginning to sound like Wufei from Gundam Wing! And just follow me!" Neon shouted.

"Injustice! It's the wrong way!"

Just then the lights in that area went out.

"ARGHHH!!!"

"Jisho, this is all your fault! If you'd just followed me..." Neon screamed in frustration.

"If YOU'd just followed me, we wouldn't be stuck here!" Jisho shot back, "you're the one being difficult!"

"Now, what are we going to do?! This is all your fault!"

Meanwhile, in another part of the mansion...

Mikoto and Mokuren had locked themselves in a room and were doing unspeakable and indescribable things to each other.

Anyway, somewhere else...

"La la la..." Kirin sang loudly as she bounced along behind Rasen. "La la la..."

Rasen stopped. He turned and glared at Kirin. 'Would you mind just shutting up?'

"La la la..." Kirin continued singing. "I'm diffusing the tense atmosphere. La la la..."

Rasen sighed and continued walking as he tried to block out Kirin's singing. It was distracting him from the mission. It was not as if Kirin could not sing well, in fact, she sang pretty well. It was just *very* distracting. Rasen once again cursed his luck at getting paired with Kirin. She could be so irritating some times... okay, most of the time. She just kept on messing up. The worst thing was that he was actually alone with her... well, the Uruha were all in some other part of the mansion. He could not guarantee that he would have the self-control to not throttle her, especially if this kept up any longer.

Kirin however, was in seventh heaven. It had been a great day so far... except for the bus ride of course. First of all, Rasen had actually allowed her to cling onto him... but only because he had been too shocked by the chandelier suddenly falling to protest or glare at her. And now she was *alone* with Rasen... so it was a mission, but well...

"La la la..." Kirin was rather freaked out about this house. What she had seen of it so far made her believe that the house really was haunted. She sang louder in order to distract herself.

Rasen turned and gave her a lethal glare. 'SHUT UP!!!'

"La la la..." 'Rasen, where are we going?'

'Do I look like I know?!'

*crash*

Rasen stopped and turned around again. Kirin was buried under a suit of armor that she must have crashed into. 'Can't you look where you're going?!' he asked her exasperatedly. He pulled her out of the wreckage and continued walking, giving no further thought to the suit of armor.

*creak* *creak* *creak*

Kirin, however, was rooted to the spot. "Ra... Rasen... ARGHHHHH!!!"

Rasen winced painfully as his ears were assaulted by Kirin's scream. 'WHAT NOW?!' He turned around and his jaw dropped.

The suit of armor had pulled itself together and was upright once more. That in itself was impossible since Kirin had scattered all the separate pieces of armor all over the floor when she had bumped into it. Even more unbelievable was the fact that it was slowly shuffling stiffly towards them, its rusty sword drawn. The gap in its visor where its eyes ought to have been was glowing an eerie red.

Rasen stared at the walking armor, not believing what he was seeing. Kirin screamed again as it raised its sword, as though to strike her. Suddenly, the corridor seemed to come alive as the various arrays of armored knights slowly came to life, surrounding the two assassins...

Somewhere else in the middle of the mansion...

"So, exactly what are we supposed to do?" Joker yawned as he tagged along behind Raiha. His stomach was growling and he remembered the *real* reason why he decided to team up with Raiha. "Do you happen to have anything to eat?"

Raiha turned around and looked at him, "We're supposed to be investigating the place, so stop thinking about your stomach."

Joker complained, "Easy for *you* to say, you brought your own food. You don't want me to die of hunger do you?" He opened his eyes really wide and gave Raiha his apparently most appealing look, which did not exactly work, since Raiha could not see his eyes. "Please please please please please...."

Raiha gritted his teeth and wondered why he had to be the one "baby-sitting" Joker. Right now, he *really* wanted to sit on Joker, preferably, a Joker that had been knocked out. "Oh fine, you can have this."

He threw a packet of biscuits at Joker, who immediately devoured all. His cheerful and insufferable personality restored to 100%, he started to drive Raiha mad all over again.

*****

"So where are we heading to now? Wait, that's a stupid question, we're not even *going* anywhere. In fact, we can't *go* anywhere. Still, Raiha-han, where are we going?"

"WILL YOU QUIT ASKING ME STUPID QUESTIONS?!?!?! YOU'VE BEEN ASKING ME THAT FOR THE LAST 5 MINUTES!!!!!!" Raiha was finally losing his patience with the black-and-white baka known as Joker.

Joker grinned at Raiha and said cheerfully, "That's what Joker's are for, to drive you mad!"

Raiha whacked his forehead with his palm. "If you don't stop bugging me, I'm going to make you into a piece of patchwork!"

Just then, both of them heard a faint whirring sound.

"Hm... did you just hear what I heard?"

"Yes, and I think it was coming from behind one of the walls. You take this side of the corridor, I'll take this side."

Both of them made their way slowly along the walls, tapping each one to see if it was hollow. Joker knocked on each panel, feeling like a fool, not like he *wasn't* one.

Just as he was about to start pestering Raiha again on what they were supposed to be doing, he heard the ninja give an exclamation of surprise.

"Joker-han! I think I've found something... ARGH!"

Joker turned around in time to see his friend falling through a hole in the wall that wasn't there the last time he looked. He ran over 

and peered through it.

"Raiha-han! Are you alright?" He called through the hole. A faint muffled reply came up from somewhere down there. Before Joker knew what was happening, Joker felt something hit him from behind. He tumbled headfirst through the hole to join Raiha, wherever he was.

TBC…

Author's note: Hahaha… I'm sort of having a laughing fit, which means I'm hyper. This is bad. Actually being hyper in school is a good thing because it means I'm not asleep. School is so boring I could fall asleep. I haven't before, but it's tough to stay awake. Besides, I sit somewhere in front and the teacher's always like standing in front of my desk.

You know, I seriously don't think Mikoto and Mokuren are ever going to really do anything in this fic. They'll just continue having their 'fun'. *sweatdrop* Actually I don't see how they can go on and on… like don't they get tired or something? Oh well… expect them to be 'having fun' and doing unspeakable and unmentionable stuff for a long time. I have no idea what to do to them. Maybe it's better to just leave them inside. At least they enjoy themselves, right? ^_^

The Neon and Jisho part is seriously exaggerated. And Jisho is beginning to sound like Wufei from Gundam Wing, there's a reference somewhere up there. Sigh… I really want to watch GW. It's actually showing on television but it's at 7:30 in the mornings every Saturday, too early for me. Okay, I'm very lazy. ^_^

I have no idea what prompted me to write the Rasen and Kirin part. ^_^ I originally wanted to add some sap, but since I really suck at writing sap I just left it like that. Actually neither of us is any good at writing sap.

In case anyone was wondering, En wrote the part where Joker was pestering Raiha for food. It sounds very, well, En. Basically, it's something En would do when she's trying to drive people mad, which is like always. ^_^ Do you notice that the parts she writes all end up sounding very like her? ^_^

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	6. Chapter 6

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: None of the characters used here belong to us (duh!). They were just borrowed without permission for entertainment (and torture) purposes.

Last Revised: 18/07/2001

**| Chapter 6 |**

"RASEN... ARGHHHHH!!!"

Rasen winced once more and fervently wished that he had had the foresight to bring along a pair of earplugs. Masking tape or super glue would have come in pretty useful too. 'Stop screaming, and do something useful!' he ordered Kirin, irritated, as he cut the suit of armor in two. Kirin sighed in relief and pulled out her madougo. The two of them proceeded to knock down the suits of armor.

"*pant* Ano... Rasen, they don't seem to be dead," Kirin indicated the suits of armor that were reforming and approaching them once again.

The two of them looked in horror as the suits of armor once again surrounded them.

'Run!' Rasen grabbed Kirin's hand and took off down the corridor as the armored knights gave chase rather stiffly.   
  


The two capable *ahem* Uruha assassins ran frantically down the corridor, chased by suits of armor. It was just too bad that the corridor ended in a dead end and did not go anywhere.

"We are so dead!" Kirin moaned as she leaned against the wall.

Something somewhere deep in the mansion shifted and the next thing Kirin knew, she was falling twenty feet down a shaft. She landed face first in a deep pool of muck and grime, nearly swallowing a large mouthful of the horrible stuff.

"Ugh... *splutter* eww..." Kirin surveyed her surroundings as she tried to remove as much of the muck as possible. "My new shirt's totally ruined! Eww... where on earth is this?"

Kirin found herself trapped in a square, dark chamber. Sloshing around the waist-deep muck, she realized that there was no way for her to get out, short of climbing up the slippery walls to the top. Even if she could have done so, she seriously doubted it would have done any good. She was trapped in some stupid mansion and it was all the fault of those stupid suits of armor. So much for her good day.

Left with nothing better to do, Kirin resorted to trying to scream her head off, "ARGHHHHH..."

Mikoto and Mokuren paused in their unmentionable deeds, "did you just hear something scream?"

"Hm... it's probably just the wind."

They went back to doing what they were doing before the interruption.

Meanwhile...

Kurei had taken a route, which led him down, towards the basement of the mansion. He thought of the large painting he had seen earlier that seemed to show the house in better times. He couldn't help wondering how come no one had thought of buying the house. Such a big place would probably be worth quite a lot.

*THUD!*

He swiveled round at the sound that seemed to come from behind a wall. "Who's there? Show yourself." He ordered, his hand ready to call out a flame at a moment's notice.

He heard a faint scream coming from the other side of the mansion. Recognizing it to be Kirin, he sighed and thought to himself, 'How on earth did she become part of the Uruha? All she does is screech and read people's minds!'

"Isn't that why you chose her? Because she could read minds?" He heard Kurenai ask softly.

"That's not the point. The fact is that..." He stopped short in his argument with his flame. He had picked up another sound that sounded like a child whimpering. It was coming from the dark doorway just in front of him, which probably led to a wine cellar.

'Oh well, no harm seeing what that sound is.' He thought as he made his way cautiously towards the doorway.

Elsewhere, still arguing over whose fault it was...

Why can't you calm down and be rational for once?!" Jisho complained as he tried to make Neon see the "error of her ways". 

"I AM CALM!! YOU"RE THE ONE WHO STARTED IT!!"

Suddenly, both of them heard the famous scream, which had already reached so many people in the mansion.

"Wait a minute, isn't that Kirin?" Neon asked.

Jisho thought a while. "I believe so. But why would she be screaming her head off in this place?"

Neon was starting to get worried. "I think she's in trouble. I've never heard her scream that much before, except over Mikoto's choice of magazines. And I doubt she actually brought them with her."

"Which is why we should get out of this place. So, we shall go to the right then!"

"No, we are going to the left 'cos that's where the sound is coming from!"

So, they started all over again...

"ARGHHHHH..."

Joker blinked groggily. Was it just his imagination or was someone, most likely Kirin, screaming? He couldn't be sure. The last thing he remembered was pestering Raiha for food. Speaking of which...

"Oi, Raiha-han, got anymore food?"

A groan was his only answer. Joker looked around trying to figure out where he was, and more importantly where his so-called 'food-provider' was. Unfortunately, it was also rather dark. As Joker's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he spotted the ninja leaning against the wall opposite from him.

Another shrill scream echoed through the room... or whatever it was they had fallen into.

"That sounds like Kirin," Raiha noted absently. He was rummaging around for something. After a while, he apparently found what he wanted as he pulled a round, spherical object from... uh, somewhere.

Joker was temporarily blinded as light flooded the room. "What's that?"

The purple-haired ninja grinned, "It's some kind of madougo. I found it earlier in the mansion."

Joker shrugged. "Whatever. Got any food?"

Raiha sweatdropped. "We should find Kirin and continue the mission."

"How d'you know it's really Kirin?"

"She's the only one who can reach that pitch... well, other than you. And the only one with the lung capacity," Raiha grinned impishly as he ducked a swipe from the Taishaku Kaiten.

The ninja jumped up and ran out of the room, closely followed by the rasta-braided punk. A merry chase ensued, which ended only when the two assassins were too out of breath to run any further. By then, they were far from their starting point, in some unknown underground part of the mansion.

While Kirin was still screaming...

Genjurou paused in his meddling as his ears caught a faint noise. The mad old man glanced over at Noroi and then shrugged and went back to the interesting specimen on the laboratory table in front of him. He had probably been hearing things again in his old age. He had been meaning to get his hearing checked, but somehow never had the time.

Meanwhile, in another part of the mansion...

Kurei carefully touched the wooden door. To his disgust, the wood was rotten and the door fell apart at his touch to reveal a very winding staircase that seemed to lead into the depths of the house (think the Shinra mansion in Nibelheim). He was beginning to doubt whether there actually was a child down there when a faint, but persistent wailing caught his ears.

'It could be a trap,' Kurenai warned as he stepped through the doorway.

Kurei ignored her comment and proceeded down the rough stone staircase. His nose wrinkled at the damp, musty smell that hung in the air. It had obviously been a long time since anyone had last visited this dismal place. It would be a long time before someone visited it again, for that matter.

Five minutes later...

Kurei was still climbing down the staircase, although he was considerably much closer to his destination. He could see a very faint green glow ahead of him. Once again, he heard, or thought he heard, a child's whimper. He shook his head. It was beginning to freak him out. Kurenai sighed.

Kurei was glad when he stepped off the last step and onto proper floor. Well, it could not really be called proper since it was basically just earth, and very uneven. The damp, musty smell was even stronger here, and he could hear the faint sound of dripping water. He was in some passageway, at the end of which, a green light glowed.

'There's definitely someone there,' Kurenai commented as the crying sounds started again, this time louder.

Kurei only nodded. His feeling of unease multiplying with every step he took toward that mysterious green light and whatever secrets it might hold. Whatever was at the end of the passageway was definitely no place for a child.

As he neared the end of the passageway, he noticed that the green light was becoming stronger and brighter. Somehow, the light reminded him of Mori Kouran's laboratory back in the mansion. Suddenly, Kurei was enveloped in a blinding flash of green as the whimpering rose to a shrill scream. He raised his arm to shield his eyes as he thought, "What on earth is THAT?!"

Just as suddenly as it happened, everything disappeared. Kurei found himself alone in the dark passageway, the only sound the distant dripping of water again. Kurenai was silent. Apparently, even *she* was at a loss for words.

By now, Kurei was getting a little freaked out by the mansion. He started to wish that he had a companion or something...

'I see you changed your mind about them, then." Kurenai commented dryly.

"I see you've gotten your tongue back," Kurei shot back at her. "Just when I thought there was peace on earth once more. I was just thinking that if there was someone else with me, we could split the job in half."

Kurenai laughed, 'Yeah, right.'

They continued down the passageway together, this time with Kurenai illuminating the way again.

TBC…

Author's note: Yay, I like this part… sort of. No actually, I like the Kurei part. Well, I did write it and everything, but the reason I like it is because I took inspiration from the Shinra mansion in Nibelheim (FFVII). I know I'm really addicted to FFVII, but it's such a cool game! I totally love the storyline, and the battle system is really good. I like the whole concept of materia a lot too… it's way less troublesome than the draw system of FFVIII. Ugh… I really hated the draw system from FFVIII because you could run out of magic. Of course, it does have its advantages… like it's really easy to get the max HP with the draw system. But FFVII is so much nicer! I think it's also easier… much easier. I dunno, I just find FFVII pretty easy. Currently I'm at the second disc, just before entering Midgar a second time. One bad thing is that breeding and racing Chocobo is so darn troublesome, not to mention expensive!

You can really tell I'm addicted to FFVII. ^_^;

It appears as though Neon and Jisho will *never* stop arguing. It's not really my fault… I have no idea what to do with them if they stop arguing. ^_^

And Mikoto and Mokuren are *still* at it… will they ever stop? I don't think so. ^_^; But who really cares about said horny woody pervert and his equally horny girlfriend?

FFVII totally rules!!! YAY!!! ^_^;

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	7. Chapter 7

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: None of the characters used here belong to us (duh!). They were just borrowed without permission for entertainment (and torture) purposes.

Last Revised: 18/07/2001

**| Chapter 7 |**

At the source of the noise pollution in the mansion...

Kirin realized that her attempts at getting attention were going nowhere. She sighed as she brushed herself off again, trying to figure a way out of the muddy pool. She turned around in search of Rasen, only to find that she was alone.

"Rasen?" She called softly. "Rasen? Are you here?" She started to panic. "Rasen! Where are you?!" 

She tried to recall what had happened before she had fallen through the shaft. "Hm... first it was those knights and stuff, then they chased us... and I fell through the wall... and, wait a minute, Rasen didn't come down with me. Which means he's still up there!" 

With renewed energy, she started again, "RRRRAAASSSEEEENNN!!!!!!!!!!!" 

Twenty feet above Kirin, Rasen was busy getting rid of the suits of armor. He knew that something had happened to Kirin but, from experience, also knew that of she could scream and screech her head off, she probably wasn't injured. He narrowly avoided a slash from a rusty sword and retaliated by making the sword disappear. 

Suddenly, he heard a *very* familiar sound coming from under him. 

"RRRAASSSEEEENNN!!!!!" 

He winced inwardly as the sound assaulted his eardrums. He contemplated making her voice disappear but decided against it. He *did* need a translator after all. 

Just then a strange thing happened. The red glow in the visors gradually faded and left, leaving the suits of armor standing in their various positions of attack. Curious, Rasen poked at the nearest one gently and nimbly jumped aside as it crashed down almost on top of him. Whatever was controlling them had apparently given up. 

He noticed the hole in the wall where Kirin had most probably fallen through. He walked over to it and poked his head through it. 'Kirin? Are you there?' 

Somewhere far below him, he caught the sound of someone splashing in something gooey.

"What took you so long?! Can't you hurry up and get me out of this pig hole?" Kirin yelled back as angrily as she could. she was, in actual fact, more relived than angry. 

Rasen thought about whether he should leave her there so that she wouldn't bother him. On second thought, he decided not to. Goodness knows what she might do to my eardrums if she finds out what I would really like to do to her. Rasen thought to himself. 

'Teleport yourself out of there, you baka. You don't expect me to go down there and carry you out, do you?' He told her blandly. 

"Oh, I forgot I could teleport. Hee hee. I'm coming out now!" 

Kirin appeared in front of Rasen. He stared at her mud-splattered state and asked, 'what on earth were you doing down...' Kirin flung her arms around him and hugged him as hard as she could. 

"Did you miss me? I missed you!" She chirped happily. Rasen had not dodged her hug, and that definitely made her day. 

Rasen sighed as he untangled her from around his neck. He did not appreciate being given a mud bath by a semi-lunatic. He decided not to pursue the matter, and thought of it as a welcome back gift from Kirin. 

'Let's go.' 

"Gee, what happened to all the armor? And how come you didn't fall down with me? And also,...." A torrent of questions bombarded Rasen's ears as he began to regret not leaving her behind. 

Meanwhile, in another part of the mansion...

... two people were *still* arguing. 

"Sheesh, Jisho, don't you have a light or something?" Neon asked in irritation. "I can't see a thing. Stupid house." 

"Do I look like I carry everything around?!" Jisho shot back. "Let's just continue." 

Neon growled, "But it's pitch black, you baka!" 

Jisho glared at Neon, although in the darkness Neon did not notice, "I'm not stupid, onna!" 

"Grr... I have a name... NEON!!!" Neon aimed a kick at Jisho. However, since they were still in the dark, she missed and crashed to the fall instead. 

Suddenly, the lights flickered, and came back on. 

"Good. Now, let's take the left path and get out of this damn place!" Neon was in a really bad mood. 

However, there was no answer from Jisho. He had turned rather pale and was staring at a spot on the ground about two feet behind the fuming Neon. 

"WHAT?!?!" Neon demanded. 

Jisho continued to stare in some sort of horrified fascination, totally ignoring Neon, who was beginning to get uneasy from Jisho's weird behavior. 

"Jisho... stop trying to be funny!" Neon glared at him. 

Jisho continued to stare at whatever was behind Neon. Finally, her curiosity got the better of her, and Neon turned round. 

Fresh blood was dripping steadily from the ceiling, soaking a large crimson patch into the old threadbare carpet. However, the ceiling did not have any leaks or cracks. Furthermore, there were no bloodstains on the ceiling. 

"Uhh..." Neon shifted away from the puddle uneasily. "Shit! Jisho what are you doing?!" 

Neon had just narrowly avoided a lethal blow from Jisho's N-S swords. Even as she scrambled out of reach, Jisho was preparing for another blow. It looked as though Jisho was out to kill her, but why? 

"Jisho... this is *not* funny!" Neon panted as she jumped away from his swords once again. 

Jisho did not reply. His face was a blank, expressionless mask. He continued advancing toward the confused Neon. 

"Shit..." Neon cursed as she hastily pulled out her Fukyo Waon. She blocked the blow just in time. It would have cracked her collarbone if she had been any slower. "What the hell is happening?" 

Somewhere else in the mansion... 

Joker and Raiha looked at each other. 

"Oi, Raiha-han, where are we?" Joker asked the ninja, his tone serious (well, relatively). 

Raiha shrugged and continued to walk. 

They had somehow, during the chase, ended up in what seemed like an endless, empty corridor. What was odd, were the old fashioned candlesticks that lined the corridor at regular intervals. The candles burning provided the only light apart from the madougo. As the two assassins walked, they noted that it was gradually getting colder. 

They walked... and walked... and walked... 

Joker sighed as he propped his madougo against the wall and leant against the rough stonewall. "This corridor's endless! And did you notice? The wax never burns." 

A high-pitched, yet strangely haunting, wail filled the air as a strong gust of wind swept through the corridor. 

Joker felt his skin start to creep. He did *not* like what was happening to them. He shivered and asked, "Hey, Raiha-han, do you think you could turn down the air-conditioning or whatever? It's kinda cold you know." 

Raiha sighed. Sometimes, like now for example, he really felt like blasting Joker with his raijin just to see how a fried Joker would look like. "Could you just shut up until we get out of this place? Although, I must say that you're right, the wax isn't burning." 

They continued down the corridor again. The strange wailing had stopped by now, but there seemed to be some air currents in the passageway, which was odd, as the entire place was enclosed. Raiha frowned slightly as he thought about all the strange events that had taken place. 'The chandelier was definitely cut, it couldn't have fallen exactly at the moment when almost all of us were under it. Besides, the wires were all spliced with a knife,' he mused as he walked along with Joker. 'Strange, there's a slight wind in this place, but the flames aren't even flickering. Could it be that...' He stopped next to one of the candlesticks and stared hard at it. 

Joker asked, "Is something wrong? Why are you staring at the candle like that?" 

"Do you notice anything strange about the candles?" 

"Well, as I said, the wax doesn't burn. Oh, and also, there's no smoke or heat from the flame. Wait a minute, are you saying..." 

Raiha held his hand in the middle of the flame. He looked at Joker and said, "The flames don't exist at all." 

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the candlesticks seemed to turn wavy and disappeared. The corridor seemed to shorten as a door appeared a few meters away to their right. The two assassins looked at each other in surprise. 

"So, shall we go see what's behind that door?" Joker asked. 

Raiha shrugged. "Why not? Since we're already here, there's no harm in just taking a look." But he could not get the incident out of his head. He was steadily becoming convinced that there was more to those events than the supernatural. 

Somewhere still in a locked room... 

Mikoto and Mokuren had, well, finished whatever they had started. They decided that they should rejoin the others before they got into trouble with Kurei. Mikoto remembered how she narrowly escaped being burnt the last time Kurei got *really* mad at her for slacking. 

She put her hand on the doorknob and attempted to open the door. To her surprise, it would not turn. She rattled the knob impatiently and cursed under her breath. 

Mokuren drawled, "Did you unlock the door?" 

Mikoto snapped back, "I'm not stupid, of course I did! OUCH!" She shouted out in pain as a sudden bolt of electricity ran through her hand. "What the..." The doorknob was slowing turning red-hot. 

Mikoto and Mokuren stared at the strange sight. Suddenly, they heard a noise like someone laughing on the other side of the door. Mikoto hammered the door, only to find that there was an invisible wall that was charged with electricity in front of it. Angered at the thought of being tricked and locked into a room, she shouted, "Let us out you $#@* lunatic!" 

There was no answer on the other side. The laughter faded away into nothing. 

Mokuren shrugged. "Oh well... how about more 'fun'?" 

The two of them went back to their previous activity. 

"Noroi, pass the scalpel." 

If the masked body had eyes it would have glared at Genjurou. Here it was, on a mission, and it was stuck with Genjurou of all people. And worse than that, said loony old man was busy dissecting one of those... uhh, bodies. Deformed did not even begin to describe the bodies. One thing was certain, they had been people at some time or other. If the madougo had been human it would have shuddered in disgust and/or been violently ill. Thankfully it was not human. 

Meanwhile, Genjurou was peering at the specimen, his face mere inches from it. The specimen being observed was just one of many, but it was the only one not kept in tall glass cylinders. 

"Interesting, interesting," Genjurou muttered to himself. "Cloning processes went on here... but apparently it was a failure." 

Noroi ignored the old man and proceeded to investigate the glass cylinders that each held a body, albeit an extremely deformed one. The people in the cylinders could not even be called people anymore, they looked like... aliens. 

"Strange... specimen was injected with foreign cells," Genjurou noted. "Subsequent rejection by body caused death and abnormalities." 

Noroi shook its head. 

Deep, deep underground... 

Kurei continued walking stoically towards the source of the dim glow at the end of the corridor. He was secretly rather glad of Kurenai's company although her incessant comments got on his nerves far too much. He hated to admit it but there was something creepy about the mansion... not only that, but he kept getting the feeling that something was not right. Also he was beginning to really regret not pairing up with one of his Uruha. He would have been glad for Neon or Raiha's company... even that baka Joker would have been fine. 

Kurenai laughed. "So you are getting freaked..." 

Kurei glared. "I am NOT! There's just something weird going on." 

"Yeah, I know... I don't like this place," Kurenai replied seriously, "Hey!" 

Kurei had found a door in the wall of the corridor. Trying to turn the brass doorknob, he realized that it was locked, and short of getting Kurenai to flame it, impossible to open. Just as he was about to order Kurenai to destroy the door, the door swung open by itself on its hinges, nearing knocking him out. 

Kurei cursed as he cautiously stepped through the doorway. The room was circular and bare, and still rather dark. Right smack in the middle of the room was a large, ornate coffin. 

Curious, Kurei walked slowly towards the coffin. When he was a few meters away from it, the room suddenly lighted up mysteriously by itself. Heavy brass candle stands were arranged in a rough circle around the coffin, illuminating a strange pattern on the floor, which only extended as far as the candle stands. 

He passed the candles, noting absently that the wax was not burning. He stood beside the coffin and saw that the lid was not secured. He debated whether or not he should raise the lid. 

'This is so like a Dracula movie,' Kurenai commented. 'Why don't you open the lid?' 

"Notice that *I* will be the one who gets hit if anything happens? As for being in a Dracula movie, vampires don't exist!" Kurei retorted, although he was starting to doubt the truth of the last sentence. 

He took a deep breath and placed his hand on the lid. Kurenai was watching him closely and he wanted to prove that he was *not* getting freaked out. He discovered that the coffin felt warm, as though it had just been taken in from under the sun. He shook his head. That was virtually impossible. There was no sun in this underground place at all. He must just be imagining things. 

Kurei traced the carvings on the lid with his fingertips before he slid them under the lid. He pulled the lid up slightly, bracing himself for whatever he might see. He could not help shutting his eyes as he finally worked up the courage to fling the lid open. Nothing happened. After sometime, he opened one eye, half-expecting to see a withered old man or something out of the horror movies Joker borrowed just to freak Neon out. 

To his surprise, a young girl with silver hair was lying inside the coffin. Her face was composed as she lay in a position with her hands folded. He looked closer at the corpse and saw that she was wearing a necklace that had a strange pendant, which rested just above the collar of her dress. Curious, he reached his hand out to take a closer look at the pendant, only to be interrupted by his flame. 

'Are you *sure* you want to touch her? I mean, she's dead and all that stuff.' Kurenai succeeded in sounding skeptical and curious at the same time. 

"I believe you want to find out what this is as much as I do. Besides, what's so bad about touching a dead body? I seem to recall having one inside me." Kurei turned back to the body. He repressed a shudder as he leaned over the side and pulled the pendant towards him. As his fingers brushed her flesh slightly, Kurei realized with a shock that she was still warm. Now he was starting to freak out. A bit. He pushed it out of his mind and told himself to stop imagining things. 

He stared at the strange engravings on the pendant, which was in the rough shape of a circle. 'Strange, where have I seen that design before? It looks so...familiar,' he thought to himself. He turned it over in his palm and saw it had some words on the back of it. Kurei strained his eyes to make out the faint lettering. " 'Awakening'," he read out loud. "What kind of inscription is that? What the-?!" 

A light shot out of the pendant, lighting up the inscriptions. Kurei hastily dropped it. It fell back to its original position on its wearer where the light continued to shine, growing brighter each moment. 'Look at the ceiling,' Kurenai said in an awed voice. Kurei looked up. He saw that the light was acting like a projector - the inscriptions on the pendant were magnified and displayed clearly on the ceiling. 

Fascinated, Kurei stared at the strange designs that revolved slowly on the ceiling. Suddenly, he noticed a glow coming from below him. He looked down at the floor quickly and was stunned to see that the design on the floor had also lighted up and mirrored the image on the ceiling exactly. Kurei finally remembered where he thought he had seen the engravings on the pendant. He turned towards the coffin and reached out to shut the lid to see whether the engravings matched those on the pendant. 

Instead, he got a shock of his life as he looked down at the body of the girl. The pendant lighted up her face and her hair was now floating around her face. Even as he looked on, she seemed to take a breath and her fingers seemed to move slightly. For the second time that day, Kurenai was speechless as she hovered over the open coffin. 

Kurei tried to back away from the body but discovered his feet were rooted to the ground. He saw her eyelids flicker slightly before they opened. He found himself looking into a pair of intense violet eyes, which stared unblinkingly past his shoulder and at the ceiling. He said to no one in particular, "What on earth is that?" 

Suddenly his vision blackened, and Kurei felt himself sinking into oblivion. His last thoughts just before the darkness claimed him were of the mysterious silver-haired girl.

TBC…

Author's note: Hip, hip hooray! Jisho just got possessed! ^_^; Okay, I think I'm very mean. Well, at least they're not arguing anymore, right? Now they're fighting. ^_^ I only realized when I wrote this part that they'd actually been arguing in the dark all this time. *sweatdrop* I don't think they'll ever get along.

In case you can't tell by now, the Rasen and Kirin part was written by En. It sounds very her. She also wrote the part about the silver-haired girl. She was probably sober when she wrote the latter part. What can I say, En is just a very hyper person. ^_^ I seriously don't know what she gets high on everyday, but she seems to go mad and/or have a laughing fit just about every day in school. ^_^

Well, En tried to get the horny duo to do other more constructive activities, but luckily she decided to let the door remain locked. So now they are still doing what they do best. They'll probably be doing so for like the remaining parts… maybe.

Hmm… I have no idea what the silver-haired girl is for. En invented her, but she has no idea either. ^_^ She was influenced by Card Captor Sakura when she wrote that. They just started showing the lousy English version on television although the Chinese dub's been showing for a long time. By the way, she originally had white hair but I changed it so her hair colour is the same as my favourite villain's. ^_^ Too bad she didn't have green eyes… but I like purple a lot too.

I honestly don't know where the story is heading. It seems to be going on and on and on. ^_^

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	8. Chapter 8

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: Duh the characters don't belong to us, for one thing, I can't draw at all and Ning's look, well, much improvement is needed to reach that kind of standard. Think of all the fun we could have if they belonged to us though... (several anime characters vomit blood, others drop dead in fright, the rest decide to carry out mass suicide.) Anyway, don't sue us cause we're still students. Also, we tend to procrastinate, so you'll be wasting your time trying to get us to pay up. Ü

Last Revised: 03/08/2001

By the way, this is just a rough draft. We haven't had the chance to send it for proofreading yet, so expect some errors.

**| Chapter 8 |**

"*huff* J-jisho... *huff*" Neon panted as she backed away from the berserked Jisho. He had been attacking her non-stop and she was feeling rather winded. It did not help that his new berserk status made him even faster and stronger than before. Also, he was deadly serious and out to kill her.

Jisho continued advancing toward his fellow Jyuushinshuu member. Unlike Neon, he did not show any signs of exhaustion. It was obvious to Neon that he had been possessed by some evil entity who was out for her blood.

"Uhh... " Neon was running out of options.

All of a sudden, Jisho staggered. He dropped his madougo and promptly collapsed at Neon's feet. She proceeded to give him a sound whack on the head with her Fukyo Waon to ensure that he *was* unconscious. She breathed a sigh of relief when it was confirmed that he was out cold.

A while later...

"What's yuor problem?!?! You nearly killed me an you can't remember a thing?!?!" Neon shouted at the hapless Jisho who was leaning against the wall tiredly.

"What do you mean, nearly killed you?!?! I didn't do a thing!" Jisho retorted heatedly.

"Are you accusing me of lying?!" Neon was nearly purple with rage and lack of oxygen due to prolonged bouts of shouting fits.

"No... I'm just saying that you're hallucinating!" Jisho replied furiously. "I did not try to kill you! In fact, I was sitting here all the while for hours doing nothing, you onna!"

Neon opened her mouth to let forth another scalding comment, but then the meaning of his last sentence set in and she could only open and close her mouth in surprise. "You mean... that you've been sitting here for hours?"

Jisho raised an eyebrow as he eyed his partner warily. "Yeah... didn't I say so earlier?"

Neon blanched. "But I could have sworn that you were trying to kill me just a few minutes ago. And I was *not* hallucinating, you brainless twit!"

Jisho glared at Neon and growled. "Well, you obviously were hallucinating because nothing of that sort happened! And I'm not a brainless twit, busu!"

Neon turned purple with rage. "What did you call me?!?!?!"

The sound of an enraged shout echoed throughout the mansion.

Raiha opened the door cautiously, wondering what was behind it. To his disappointment, and perhaps, relief, it had been boarded up on the other side.

Joker tried to conceal his relief by saying, "Oh well, at least we know there's nothing behind that. Shall we go on?"

Raiha nodded and turned to follow him before he paused . "Just a minute. Why would the door have been boarded up on that side? Shouldn't the boards be on this side of the corridor?"

Joker groaned. "Let me guess, *you* want to tear down the boards and see what's on the other side, right?"

Raiha grinned. "Yup. And, to make things easier for me, *you're* going to tear it down!"

Joker jawdropped as he pointed at himself. "ME?! No way! Give me ten good reasons why!"

Raiha looked at the ceiling and started counting. "1) You haven't done anything since we got here. 2) You've been nothing but a pest so this is your punishment. 3) You madougo is more suitable than mine for the job. 4) If you don't do it, I won't give you anything to eat. 5) If you still won't do it, I'm going to abandon you here; and with your sense of direction, you'll never get out. 6) I know where you keep your album of your childhood photos. 7) I've got the resources and time to publish your diary for the whole Uruha to read. 8) I happen to know some deep dark secrets about your past which I *can* and will tell the rest about, like the time when you..."

"Okay! Okay! I'll do it. Sheesh, you're pretty good at blackmail, Raiha-han," Joker complained as he aimed his Taishaku Kaiten at the door.

Raiha laughed, "With a colleague like you, who wouldn't be? Blackmail seems to be the only way to get you to do something."

"Ha ha, just wait til I get you," Joker grumbled to himself as the door disintegrated into a pile of wooden splinters.

Somewhere at the bottom of the mansion...

Kurei opened his eyes slowly to find himself staring at the ceiling. He recalled seeing a supposedly dead girl with silver hair coming to life before he blacked out for no reason. As he gradually became more aware of his surroundings, he realised that he was lying in some sort of padded box. His eyes widened in horror as he shot upright into a sitting position.

"WHAT THE HECK AM I DOING IN THE FREAKING COFFIN?!?!" He shouted at nobody. Kurenai tactfully remained silent. She had, of course, gone back inside him when he fainted. From the corner of his eye, Kurei thought he saw a flicker of candlelight reflecting of something shiny. He turned his head round to find himself almost face-to-face with the silver-haired girl.

She was standing with her elbows on the edge of the coffin. She rested her chin on her hands and looked at him curiously. 'She can't be more than 12,' Kurei thought to himself. She gripped the medallion around her neck tightly, as though seeking reassurance from it.

She stepped back quickly and stared as Kurei swung himself lightly out of the coffin and dusted himself off. He found her silent gaze rather unnerving. He tried to cover up his slight unease by asking her, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

She stared back at him as though she did not understand the question. Kurei sighed as he thought, 'Great, another whacko.' He waited for a while before asking again, "Well? Can't you talk or something?"

To his surprise, the girl answered in a voice that was mature for her age, "Who are *you* and what are *you* doing here?"

Kurei replied, "I'm Kurei and I'm here with some other people to investigate the place. Now, how did you come to be inside that coffin? And how did I end up in there??

The girl ignored his last two questions. She turned around and walked towards the door, leaving him standing beside the coffin by himself. She paused at the doorway and said a little impatiently, "Well, don't you want to get out of here, Kurei?" She continued out of the door without waiting for his answer. Mystified, Kurei had no choice but to follow her.

Kurei examined the girl carefully. She was still a child really. Her long silver hair appeared to be blown by an invisible wind, and her intense amethyst eyes, framed by thick silver eyelashes, seemed too big for her heart-shaped face. She was short, about as tall as Koganei or maybe even shorter, and seemed almost too thin. Her dress, a simple long white one, looked strangely out of place... as if it belonged to some other forgotten, long ago era. She was barefoot, yet gave the impression of floating effortlessly over the ground. What drew Kurei's attention the most was the mysterious pendent hanging on a thin silver chain around her neck. A unicorn reared in front of a shining spiral sun. Even more fascinating, was the fact that the pendent was glowing with a soft blue light all its own.

'There's something about her not quite right,' Kurenai announced, 'but I can't quite place it.'

Kurei drolly thought that anybody found sleeping in a coffin could not possibly be 'quite right'. He still was not sure who she was or what her motive, but everything about her seemed to radiate innocence and light. Besides, his curiosity was piqued and the only way his questions about her would be answered was if he followed her.

'If I recall correctly, *someone* recently found himself in a coffin,' Kurenai interrupted his thoughts.

"Someone dumped me there!" Kurei snapped.

'Fine...' Kurenai replied soothingly. 'What are you going to do about *her*?'

The silver-haired girl was still walking silently in front of him. She seemed oblivious to anything and everything as she made her way down the passage. It was only then that Kurei, who had been absorbed in his own thoughts, realised that she was leading him the opposite way from the way he had entered. They were walking towards the faint green glow at the end of the passage, his original destination.

"Wait... this is the wrong way!" Kurei protested as he turned to go back.

The girl stopped and simply looked at him with those intense purple eyes of hers. There was something in them that compelled him to follow her, instead of turning back and running out of this dark, damp passageway as his common sense advised.

They approached the heavy wooden door. Green light streamed through the cracks in the wood, casting an eerie glow on their surroundings. The silver-haired girl walked straight up to the door and effortlessly pulled it open. She held the door and gestured for Kurei to enter first.

Kurei was amazed at the room before him, to think that a library had been hidden underground in this mansion! The library, for that was what the room certainly was, was crammed full, rather untidily, with books of all sorts. Green light streamed down through skylights, illuminating the room and its contents. A fire burned in the large fireplace, and candles provided further lighting. Kurei stepped hesitantly across the threshold and into the library.

As Kurei stared at the shelves and shelves of books and the piles and piles of paper strewn all over, he failed to notice the girl quietly close the door as she left.

TBC…

Author's note: Arghhh… it's already August!!! I can't believe time passes so fast. It's so unfair! The prelim exams are about a month away and I've just started studying. I don't know how I'm ever going to finish studying. By the way, my mom kind of banned me from meddling with my websites, so this is kind of illegal. ^_^ I don't really care, actually because most of the time I have absolutely zilch mood to study. And besides, one can't study all the time. ^_^ But I seriously think I spend too little time studying… arghhh!!! I hate school!

I recently started drawing anime style characters. They turned out terrible because I really can't draw. It's basically just to keep me occupied in classes, especially in literature class. I just can't seem to get the hair and eyes right. Wait, that's practically everything. Yeah, I have a lot of problems drawing proper anime style hair, as in the kind that uses buckets of gel. I also keep drawing the eyes too big and the two eyes are never equal. It's so difficult drawing eyes that are identical! As you can tell, I can't draw for nuts. I'm just a very bored person with a lot of free time (yeah right!). ^_^

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	9. Chapter 9

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: Duh the characters don't belong to us, for one thing, I can't draw at all and Ning's look, well, much improvement is needed to reach that kind of standard. Think of all the fun we could have if they belonged to us though... (several anime characters vomit blood, others drop dead in fright, the rest decide to carry out mass suicide.) Anyway, don't sue us cause we're still students. Also, we tend to procrastinate, so you'll be wasting your time trying to get us to pay up. Ü

Last Revised: 03/08/2001

By the way, this is just a rough draft. We haven't had the chance to send it for proofreading yet, so expect some errors.

**| Chapter 9 |**

Genjurou adjusted his half-moon glasses as he continued to peer at the sheet of paper in his hand. The writing was simply illegible, not to mention microscopic. To make matters worse, the ink had faded over time. That was not surprising, since the paper was dated well over a hundred years ago. Genjurou, however, was not about to give up. He was sure that the paper held important clues to the nature of the cloning experiments that had been going on in the laboratory. Now, if only his eyesight were better...

Noroi idly played with a scalpel as he watched Genjurou strain his eyesight over what was to him a piece of junk. Make that a piece of antique junk. The mask considered babysitting Genjurou quite a waste of time and would have preferred working alone.

Genjurou suddenly gave a loud whoop of triumph. "The library... ah yes, the library!"

Noroi dropped the scalpel carelessly where it embedded itself into Genjurou's lab specimen and prepared to leave.

"Wait, where *is* the library?" Genjurou frowned as he flipped the paper over in search of a map.

Noroi sweatdropped (if that was possible).

A soft noise caused both mask and man to look up hastily. A young lady was leaning casually across the doorframe, looking at them expectantly.

Genjuro gripped his madougo and rasped, "Who are you and what do you want?"

The young lady, who had silver hair and violet eyes, replied in a melodious voice, "I know you and I know what you want."

Genjuro sneered, "Really? And what would that be?" Noroi Turned its head, as though it found the exchange rather amusing. After all, it wasn't everyday that someone dared to talk back at the old man.

The lady pushed herself off the doorframe and walked towards them. They unconsciously backed away from her, noticing that she wore a strange pendant around her neck which glowed on its own. She swept past them, not seeming to notice the stares she was getting from their direction.

She faced the only wall in the laboratory that was not filled with books and reached out to place the palm of one hand against the wall. There was a click and the wall moved out of its place, revealing a staircase that spiralled downwards towards the bottom of the mansion. Genjuro tried to conceal his surprise at the revelation of a hidden passageway by saying indifferently, "What's that got to do with what I want?"

The lady looked at him over her shoulder and said, "The library is at the end of the staircase. Your Kurei-sama is down there too." She retraced her steps and walked out of the room, leaving Genjuro to stare at the fluttering hem of her white dress and wonder how on earth she had known that.

"So, let's go see the library then," Genjuro told Noroi who just nodded and started down the dark staircase. It lighted up mysteriously with torches as they stepped through the door. They proceeded down the staircase cautiously, wondering, or rather, Genjuro wondered, Noroi stoned, whether the library really was at the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh, great, *another* dead end," Kirin complained as she faced another wall. "Rasen, are you sure we came by this way?"

'Even if it's not the way, at least we're still investigating the mansion,' Rasen replied as he turned around to go back the way they came from.

Kirin sighed as she followed him. They had more or less lost their way when they had run away from the armor. Suddenly, both of them heard voices that seemed to come from the other side of the wall...

"I'm telling you, you were hallucinating! Why the heck would I want to attack you for? I've got better things to do!"

"If that wasn't you then who was I fighting with?"

"Fighting with? You weren't fighting! You were just sitting opposite me complaining about something when you suddenly got up and whacked me with your Fukyo Waon!"

Kirin cheered up. "Hey! I think that's Neon and Jisho! Shall we go catch up with them?"

Rasen nodded as they made their way down the corridor to try to find a door that connected the two sides. At least I won't have to put up with her by myself, Rasen thought. Although having Neon and Jisho quarreling the whole way isn't exactly very relaxing either.

On the other side of the wall...

Neon and Jisho were at it. *Again*. This time, Jisho was trying to convince Neon that both of them had been doing nothing while Neon was trying to convince Jisho that he had been trying to kill her.

Neon was getting more irked by the moment. She kicked the wall in frustration, doing more damage to her foot than to the wall. As she hopped around clutching her foot, she heard a familiar voice call out.

"Neon! Jisho! Is that the two of you?"

"Kirin!" Neon exclaimed happily. "Thank goodness you're here. You're just the person we need to help us solve this problem we're having."

She proceeded to fill in the bewildered Kirin and Rasen with what had happened since they, well, got stuck at the split corridor. Kirin and Rasen sweatdropped as their colleagues somehow managed to exchange insults and argue while telling them what had happened.

Rasen sighed to himself again and thought, Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all...

Somewhere in a dark underground passage, outside a mystery room...

"You go first."

"No, no, no... *you* opened the door so *you* should have the honour of entering first."

"It's precisely because I opened the door that *you* should go first."

The two of them, two of the most powerful assassins in the Uruha, had been standing in front of the doorway in the dark, chilly passageway arguing for fifteen minutes. Neither was willing to be the first to enter. It was understandable that neither of them felt the slightest inclination to step across the threshold and into the dark, forbidding room. The room reeked of the stench of death and decay. Not only that, the room remained dark and gloomy despite the bright, cheery light emitted by the madougo. It was as if the darkness ate up whatever light it touched. All in all, it was *not* a pleasant place to be.

Joker looked at his fellow assassin and bowing mockingly, stepped way from the doorway. He did not want to enter that freaky room of unknown horrors. Horrors that he would quite frankly like to leave unknown.

"Oh just go in, you baka!" the purple-haired ninja snapped as he shoved the hapless Joker through the doorway and into the dreaded room.

"Itai! You just dented my helmet!" Joker protested as he fingered the dent on his helmet. There was also a dent on the wall. It was to be noted that the dent on the wall was noticeably deeper and more serious than the one on Joker's helmet.

Raiha followed the other Uruha member in cautiously, glaring and sighing inwardly. Joker was one of his best friends amongst the Uruha (well, he was one of the most normal) and a great person, but one could not deny that he was, and always would be, a well... baka. The baka did not even seem to be able to take a mission seriously either. Raiha was beginning to wish that he had partnered someone more sensible like Neon or Jisho and let someone else be stuck with this rasta-braided punk.

"Oi, Raiha-han, there's nothing here!" Joker called from a corner. He carelessly prodded a flowervase and then sneezed multiple times as a cloud of dust rose.

*crash*

"Err... Raiha-han..." Joker turned around quickly, and his eyes were met with a gruesome sight.

One of the large flowerpots in the conservatory... well, the room appeared to be a conservatory of sorts due to the assortment of potted plants crammed into the room. Most of the plants were long dead, but that was not surprising as the mansion had been abandoned for many years. The large flowerpot had apparently crashed to the floor, six feet away from where Raiha was standing in the centre of the room. The contents of the flowerpot were all over the smooth tiled floor where the flowerpot had stood just a moment before. Just visible, but mostly hidden, amongst the soil and dead plant matter was a human head.

As the two assassins watched in morbid fascination, the soil hiding the head slid away to reveal... the head of a lady. A lady with long, matted and bloodstained silver hair, her lovely eyes and mouth forever open, and her bloody face twisted in an expression of great horror and shock. Her graceful neck was totally covered with dry blood from the numerous slash wounds on it.

"Urkk..." Joker dashed out of the room looking distinctly queasy.

Raiha followed immediately after him, looking more than a little queasy himself.

The two assassins leaned against the cool wall of the passageway as they tried to get the disturbing picture out of their minds. Neither assassin said anything for a while. They just stood outside the room, neither willing to go back in.

"Oh man... what on earth was a *head* doing inside there?!" Joker asked once he had gotten his stomach back under control. It had helped that his stomach was empty in the first place.

"We have to go back in and investigate, Joker-san."

"Yeah..." Joker strode purposefully back into the room.

The next instant, he had dashed back out again.

"Raiha-han, the head... it's gone!"

Locked in a room somewhere else in the mansion...

Mikoto and Mokuren were still at it. They were still doing unspeakable and unmentionable things to each other. Things that now involved whips and leather. The fact that they were actually on a mission to investigate a house had apparently slipped their minds. They were 'having fun'. Again.

TBC…

Author's note: Sigh… I actually wrote the Joker and Raiha part three times! *groans* Let's see, the first time I accidentally logged out of my e-mail account after finishing writing when I was about to send it. So I lost everything! And it was much nicer than the current version. The second time, my computer hung when I was typing it. So I lost everything. Again. Finally I managed to send it without any problems the third time. I think I would have screamed and bashed my computer if I had to write the same thing out more than three times. *growls* Still, I'm quite happy with that part. Not as good as the first (lost) version, but better than the second (also lost) version.

In case anyone was wondering, the head does not necessarily have any connection with the silver-haired girl. I just wanted to add a decapitated head in. ^_^;

As for Mikoto and Mokuren, they're still at it. What else can they do? ^_^ As to how they actually got whips and leather, and other *ahem* equipment, I have no idea. Not everyone carries whips around like Nakago. ^_^ I'm not sure, but Mikoto and Mokuren do seem the type for S&M stuff.

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	10. Chapter 10

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: Duh the characters don't belong to us, for one thing, I can't draw at all and Ning's look, well, much improvement is needed to reach that kind of standard. Think of all the fun we could have if they belonged to us though... (several anime characters vomit blood, others drop dead in fright, the rest decide to carry out mass suicide.) Anyway, don't sue us cause we're still students. Also, we tend to procrastinate, so you'll be wasting your time trying to get us to pay up. Ü

Last Revised: 03/08/2001

By the way, this is just a rough draft. We haven't had the chance to send it for proofreading yet, so expect some errors.

**| Chapter 10 |**

Genjurou hummed tunelessly as he carefully placed his left foot on the next step. When the step did not give way, he gingerly placed his right foot next to his left foot. He had serious misgivings about this. Not only was the windy staircase an old wooden one that seemed ready to give way any second, but it was also very dark. The darkness made it all the more difficult for him to make out the uneven steps. It required all of his concentration just to walk down the staircase. As a result, even a snail moved faster than he. Well, he certainly did not want to die here. Not before he reached the library where he was sure all the secrets were kept. The cloning project that had been going on in the library mystified him... it deviated from the standard process substantially and there were some unidentified substances.

Noroi stomped down the staircase behind Genjurou. His stomping caused quite a bit of worry to the loony old man. Every step the mask took caused the rickety old staircase to rattle dangerously, and the loony old man to pray fervently. The mask could not have cared less. He was fed up with following said loony old man around. They were supposed to be on a mission not some blasted research project. Yet the old man was going around chasing clones and what not.

"To think... all the mysteries, everything... will be revealed soon," Genjurou cackled in anticipation of the wealth of knowledge he would find in the library.

Noroi stoned and wisely did not say anything. Well, actually, it could not say anything. But it did not want to anyway.

*crack* *splinter*

"AHHHHH!!!" Genjurou flailed wildly as he fought to regain his balance. His lack of concentration had caused him to step on a rotten plank. The stair had given way and Genjurou now found himself falling.

Genjurou waved his arms wildly as he tried to grab onto something... anything. But there was only the smooth greyness of stone on all sides. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Noroi dropping like a stone. Genjurou's panicked mind tried desperately to think up of a way to save them. Well, Genjurou could not have cared less what happened to the mask. Technically it *was* dead. But he had a very strong sense of self-preservation and thinking of all his unfulfilled master plans and desires, he was very reluctant to die here.

As he fell, an image formed in front of him. When the image cleared, Genjurou saw a silver-haired young lady in a simple yet elegant white dress was staring at him with those sad but mesmerising purple eyes of hers. It was the same girl who had shown him this staircase earlier. Her long white hair floated in the imaginery breeze as she knelt. As he watched, she bowed her head in a display of some emotion. Perhaps it was regret, or sorrow, or even grief. It was hard to tell.

Genjurou blinked blearily and the young lady was replaced with the unforgiving coldness of grey stone wall.

The two Uruha assassins continued to fall... even after reaching terminal velocity, they continued to fall...

"Gone?! What do you mean it's gone?" Raiha asked Joker in disbelief. "If that's your idea of a joke, it's not very funny!"

"Really, I'm not kidding you. The head *is* gone, go see for yourself!" Joker insisted as he shoved Raiha towards the room. Raiha stepped through the doorway rather relunctantly. He stared at the spot where the head was supposed to be and realised that Joker had been telling the truth, for the first time in a long time.

"Okay... so you were right, it is gone. We weren't seeing things, were we?" Both assassins were standing in the middle of the room, where they had seen the head. Raiha was sure that there was nothing wrong with his sanity, though he had doubts about Joker's.

"No... I'm am very sure it was lying right - hey!"

A sudden ray of light shot through the dark conservatory, blinding the two assassins. As their eyes adjusted to the brightness, they realised that the roof had somehow been cleared of all the dirt and whatever it had collected over the years, allowing the sunshine to enter the house.

Joker wheeled around to face the doorway they had come in by, only to get a shock of his life. Instead of a splintered hole, there now was a glass door with a gold leaf handle. The dead plants had bloomed and the air was filled with the scent of fresh flowers.

Joker could only stare and wonder whether he was in a dream. He tugged Raiha's sleeve and said in an awe-struck voice, "Raiha-han, you *are* seeing what I'm seeing right?"

When there was no answer, he turned around to see his friend staring at the other end of the room. Wondering what had come over the usually calm and collected ninja, he asked again, "Raiha-han, what's wrong?"

Raiha raised one hand and waved it in the direction he was staring at and said, "Her."

Joker looked and got another shock of his life. Just a few metres away from them stood a lady with silver hair. They could only see her side profile as she was bending over some flowers, but the colour of her hair was unmistakable. Even as they gaped at her, she straightened herself and turned her head to look at them with intense purple eyes.

Joker almost fainted. "Isn't... isn't that the head we saw just now?"

Raiha replied in a rather soft voice, "They're too similar, it has to be the same person. But how come she's alive?"

The lady was watching them silently. She could see from their faces that they were confused about something. She stepped towards them, her white dress rustling slightly as she walked. "Are you looking for something? Or perhaps, someone?" she asked in the general direction of Raiha's katana and Joker's back. The two of them jumped guiltily before turning to face her.

"Er... actually, no. I mean, we were just passing by and we saw the door, so..." Raiha trailed off, before blurting out, "You *are* real, aren't you?"

The lady stared at him in surprise for a while before giving a little laugh. "Me? Real? I suppose you could say I'm as real as you want me to be. Why do you ask?"

Raiha and Joker heaved secret sighs of relief. It was rather comforting to be in the presence of someone *alive*, even though the someone resembled a dead person too closely. Joker tried to cover up Raiha's seemingly strange question by saying off-handedly, "Oh, it's nothing, We just happened to see quite a few illusions on our way here."

The lady wore a strange smile on the corner of her mouth. "Illusions, eh? Most of the time, it is only your mind. By the way, who are you and what are you doing here?"

Joker had regained some of his sense of humour. "I'm Joker and this is Raiha. As you can see, we're not doing anything here, we're just hanging around. Since you know who we are and what we're doing here, who are you and what are you doing here?"

The lady smiled the strange smile again as she fingered the strange pendant she wore round her neck. "My name is no concern of yours. As for what I'm doing here, I'm talking to you now. See?"

Raiha could not help smiling to himself. Joker had finally met his match in a strange girl who looked like she came from another time.

Abruptly, her smile left her face as she said in a serious tone, "Your friend is in the library. I believe his name is Kurei. If you'd like me to, I can give you directions as to how to get there."

Raiha suddenly became alert. "You've met Kurei-sama?" She inclined her head slightly. "Oh well, since he's in the library, we might as well go meet up with him. There's nothing to find here anyway."

The lady silently nodded as she indicated with her hand to follow her to the door. She opened it for them to pass through, saying, "Just follow the hall all the way to the end. When you reach the end, go through the door, turn left and continue until you see a stone wall. Push the brick at the bottom left-hand side and you will see a staircase. The library is at the bottom of the stairs."

Joker asked in surprise, "You're not coming with us?"

She smiled again and shook her head, "There are other things I must see to. Whether or not we meet again, only time will tell."

The two assassins walked down the hall together, both thinking of the strange lady with silver hair. Raiha turned his head to take a look at her. She was still standing at the door, but with her head leaning against it. She looked very tired and, was it, sad? The strange pendant around her neck glowed a soft blue even from a distance. Raiha faced forward again. What were the "other things" that she had to see to? And what did she mean when she said that the illusions were because of their minds, and that she was as real as they wanted her to be? A very mysterious character indeed.

"Okay! Rasen says we'll take the left path, alright?!" Kirin shouted in exasperaion, trying to make herself heard over the two arguing assassins. 'Man... is this a *bad* idea!'

"NO IT'S NOT OKAY!!!" Jisho thundered as he glared at the satisfied Neon. "It's the right path, I tell you! That onna's out of her mind!"

"Oh yeah? Well, who was trying to kill me just now?!"

"I tell you, we were just sitting here doing nothing!!!"

The other two Uruha members sweatdropped. Neon and Jisho had been arguing for the past fifteen minutes... discounting the time before Kirin and Rasen turned up. As the other two sweatdropped and wished for aspirin, Neon and Jisho continued bickering.

"SHUT UP!!!" Kirin yelled.

There was a sudden silence.

"Ahem. We'll take the left path. Rasen says start moving or he'll make you disappear!" Kirin announced.

Rasen glared at her. 'I said nothing of that sort.'

Kirin laughed nervously and pushed Neon down the left path. 'Well, at least we're not standing there listening to them argue...' Rasen had to agree.

The four Uruha members had been walking down the left path for about an hour now. The left path had turned out to be totally devoid of interest. The was nothing there... absolutely nothing. No doors, no strange items, no trap doors. In a sense, it was a relief. That did not mean that the journey had been peaceful though. Far from it, in fact. Neon and Jisho had been arguing the whole way, and showed no signs of stopping.

Kirin stoned as she walked and tried to block the noise out. She was ultra bored and wondered just how long more it would be before she actually *turned* into a stone.

Rasen was not faring any better. He was also trying to fend off a splitting headache.

"Onna, this is a complete waste of time!"

"What makes you think the right path would have been any different?!"

"This is just one damned passage that leads no where, ahou!"

"And the other one led somewhere?!" Neon shot back defensively. In truth, she was beginning to agree with Jisho. But she would rather die than admit that she shared the same opinion as that... that baka yarou.

"AAARGHHH!!!"

Three people winced and prayed for earplugs as the other person screamed shrilly.

What now, Kirin?' Rasen asked the girl who was now trying to cling onto him. He had the feeling that his hearing would never be the same again, all thanks to said girl who was *still* trying to cling onto him. He was *really* beginning to regret his earlier decision to save Kirin.

"The... the... the painting just... MOVED!!!" Kirin practically shrieked in Rasen's ear as she clung to him. Well, tried to.

"What painting?!" Jisho asked bad-temperedly.

Neon pointed to an old Japanese style painting of an eagle and a nightingale. "And she's right, it *is* moving."

As the four assassins watched... well, three really since Kirin absolutely refused to go near the painting, much less look at it. As the three Jyuushinshuu stared, the eagle skilfully swooped and caught the nightingale between its wicked talons. There was a spurt of blood as the nightingale was crushed between those talons.

"Ugh..." Neon grimaced as she tried to remove the blood from her dress. Neon ducked as the eagle suddenly flew *out* of the painting. It circled around them a few times before perching on the ledge.

"AAARGHHHHH!!!" the two women screamed as they ran for their lives.

Rasen winced painfully. He had thought Kirin was bad. This was ten times worse. His headache was *never* going to go away at this rate.

There was a sudden flutter of wings, and before the assassins could do anything, they were swarmed with ravens. Berserked ravens that were out for blood it seemed. The ravens swarmed around the hapless Uruha, pecking and clawing furiously.

"ARRGGHH!!! RASEN!!!!" Kirin screamed shrilly. Rasen was too busy trying not to get his eyes pecked out to bother about her.

"You stupid onna! I told you we should have taken the other path!!!" Jisho shouted at Neon.

"Oh shut up and do something before we get eaten alive!!!" Neon shouted back at him as she whipped out her Fukyo Waon and began the Prelude. A large portion of the wall and ceiling came crashing down on the four assassins, thanks to Neon's over-enthusiasm.

"Onna, are you trying to kill us or the ravens?" Jisho shouted as he narrowly escaped being hit on the head by a large piece of the ceiling.

"How about both?" Neon shot back. "At least it worked, those ravens are gone."

Kirin suddenly went limp and sat down on the floor. "That does it. Can someone please tell me exactly what I'm doing here?"

Neon sighed and said, "No one knows actually. Shall we continue?"

She pulled Kirin up from the floor and they continued down the hall without arguing, for once.

TBC…

Author's note: *LOL* I think I've had too much physics. The physics terms are beginning to creep into my vocabulary, i.e. terminal velocity. ^_^; Actually, I have no idea what terminal velocity is. I don't even like physics much. It's just that we seem to be having a lot of physics lessons. *shudder*

Hmm… I think I've played way too much FFVII. I know the Genjurou and Noroi part where the silver-haired girl appears really reminds people of the Aeris scene in the City of Ancients. By the way, I've finished the second disc! Yay!!! Hojo was *really* lousy. He died really fast… and I didn't even use anything really good like Knights of the Round or Omnislash. I thought he'd have more HP, actually. Oh well… and I finally got the Ultima Weapon! It's so good! Ahhh… the Ziedrich is also really good, too bad it doesn't have any material slots.

By the way, I'm really influenced by games. The scene with the ravens or whatever is from this playstation game. I can't quite remember what it's called, but one of my friends has it. I think it's Resident Evil or something similar. I really can't remember. ^_^

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	11. Chapter 11

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: Duh the characters don't belong to us, for one thing, I can't draw at all and Ning's look, well, much improvement is needed to reach that kind of standard. Think of all the fun we could have if they belonged to us though... (several anime characters vomit blood, others drop dead in fright, the rest decide to carry out mass suicide.) Anyway, don't sue us cause we're still students. Also, we tend to procrastinate, so you'll be wasting your time trying to get us to pay up. Ü

Last Revised: 03/08/2001

By the way, this is just a rough draft. We haven't had the chance to send it for proofreading yet, so expect some errors.

**| Chapter 11 |**

In a hallway somewhere...

Joker and Raiha were making their way towards the library using the directions given to them by the lady.

Joker finally broke the silence by asking, "Oi, Raiha-han, what do you think of that girl?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, she's kind of strange. I mean, how would she know all about the library and stuff like that? It's like she's been in this place for a very long time. And that in itself is impossible judging from the state of this house."

"Hm... I don't know. Let's just find Kurei-sama. Maybe he's had better luck than us."

The two assassins had come to the end of the corridor by this time and were now looking for the stone wall hiding the staircase, according to the lady.

"Here it is." Raiha stooped down and started pushing all the bricks at the bottom left hand side to find the one which worked the mechanism. One of them gave at his touch and the wall rotated on itself with a whirring noise similar to the one which had landed both of them at the bottom of the mansion earlier on. A stone staircase was revealed.

Raiha started down the stairs, holding the light madougo, followed closely by Joker. They did not notice the wall rotating back into its original position, sealing off their entrance.

In the library...

Kurei flipped curiously through a few of the thick volumes on the table he saw in front of him. He sneezed as a cloud of dust flew up and into his eyes.

Kurenai giggled, 'This place could use some cleaning. Bless you.'

Kurei sniffed wrathfully and opened his mouth to say some cutting comment, only to go into another sneezing fit courtesy of the deep breath he had taken. Kurenai could not hold back her giggles.

'*giggle* You look really funny when you sneeze. *giggle* Wish I had a camera with me.'

"It's *not* funny!" Kurei snapped. He glanced over at the fireplace and noticed that there were a few portraits hanging above it. He walked over to take a closer look at them. There was one of a lady, probably in her twenties, with silver hair and purple eyes. A strange medallion of some sort hung around her neck.

'Strange, where have I seen her before? She looks really familiar,' Kurei thought to himself. He shrugged and went back to looking over the books.

*crash*

Kurei whipped around and scanned the library warily. There was not a soul apart from him (and Kurenai, if you could count flames). Yet, the portrait of the silver-haired lass had fallen to the floor, its heavy gilded frame splintering. Kurei walked closer to examine the fallen painting, sneezing continuously due to the cloud of dust that had flown up when the portrait had hit the dusty floor.

*sneeze* *sneeze* *sneeze*

'Maybe you should have brought a mask,' Kurenai teased as she sent him a mental picture of Noroi.

Kurei ignored her as he bent down to get a closer look. The painting was superbly done. The lady was extraordinarily lifelike, and her surroundings seemed almost real. It was a beautiful piece of art. The lady herself was one of the most beautiful women Kurei had ever seen. Her long silver hair flowing in the wind, she sat ramrod straight in a garden chair, her large, intense purple eyes turned toward the viewer. But there was something wrong about it, no matter how perfect the painting looked at first glance. The lady sat unnaturally, her gaze cold, heartless and almost cruel. Behind her, was a scene of carnage, although it was apparent only to the most observant.

Kurei shuddered and backed away from the portrait. The lady gave him the creeps. He turned his back to the painting and resumed flipping through the heavy tomes on the table. With his back turned, he was unaware of the canvas rolling back to reveal another painting behind the original.

Genjurou and Noroi were *still* falling at terminal velocity...

Will they ever land?

Mikoto and Mokuren were *still* doing naughty things...

Will they ever stop?

Actually, short of catastrophe, no.

"La la la..."

Kirin was singing again. But this time, Neon had joined her and the two of them were singing cheerfully at the tops of their voices, their voices clashing horribly.

The two men sighed and rubbed their temples. Rasen, especially, was having a splitting headache. After all, Jisho had not had to endure Kirin's countless screaming in his ears. Rasen had, and it was a surprise he was not deaf yet. Yet.

"Onna, will you shut up?" Jisho screamed in frustration.

"When I was young..." Kirin continued to sing.

'I'm sure Karen Carpenter is turning in her grave,' Rasen told her drolly.

Kirin glared at him and continued, "It's yesterday once more..."

Neon joined her in a canon that sounded more like noise than music.

"Every shalalala..."

Jisho pulled at his hair, in frustration. Rasen thought of doing the same but it would just mess up his perfectly gelled hair.

The four of them continued trudging down the corridor, the two men gritting their teeth with every step. There was no turning back now. Neon's over-enthusiasm had blocked any other possible paths.

"Onna, that was dumb!" Jisho grumbled. "We should have gone *my* way!"

"Oh yeah, well, maybe there are pythons and black mambas your way!" Neon shot back. "Why don't you just quit whinging, you baka!"

Rasen sighed. Kirin continued singing.

"Who's whinging? I'm just... just telling you you're wrong!" Jisho looked extremely insulted.

"Well, you don't have to keep doing so every like, five minutes!" Neon retorted. "Sheesh, you're worse than a broken tape recorder!"

Jisho never got to answer as he suddenly spotted green lights flashing ahead and the steady sound of approaching footsteps.

The four Uruha flattened themselves against the walls as the footsteps came closer and closer. Who knew what enemies might be lurking here. But the footsteps, along with the green lights, passed them and then receded once more into the distance. Yet, apart from a faint shuffling sound, there was nothing. Nobody, not a single soul, not even an animal.

"ARGHHH!!! THIS PLACE IS HAUNTED!!!" Kirin screamed in Rasen's ear as she tried once again to cling onto him.

'Delayed reaction,' Rasen sighed as he tried to pry Kirin off him. It was like trying to pry a leech off. Too bad he had left the crowbar back at the Uruha mansion.

"It's all the fault of the two of you! If you weren't singing so loudly, whatever that was wouldn't have found us! Jisho snapped at Neon.

MY FAULT?! Look who's talking now!" Neon began at the top of her voice. *Another* fight was about to start; Kirin felt like fainting, Rasen started to feel suicidal...

TBC…

Author's note: *singing* "When I was young I listened to the radio…"

^_^ Okay, I have no idea why they're singing English songs considering they are Japanese and everything. It's just that Yesterday Once More is probably my favourite song at the moment. I like a whole bunch of others, like Once in a Lifetime, which is really nice. Karen Carpenter just as a really nice voice… and the tune is so beautiful too! I was listening to it over and over again as I was typing that part so I decided to include it. ^_^

Oh yeah, I just started watching the Fushigi Yuugi OVAs after finishing the series itself. The bus ride to the hotsprings is so funny! *laughing fit* I'm glad Soi fried Ashitare. *evil grin* I kind of pity Suboshi too. *sweatdrop* But it was even funnier when they actually got to the hotsprings and they had to dress up as girls. *hysterical laughing fit* Oh man… all of them looked so funny, except for Chiriko and Chichiri. Nakago was so funny!!! And so was Tasuki!!! I was laughing my head off. ^_^ Poor Mitsukake… ^_^;

But I seriously don't understand the OVA proper. It's just so warped! But I think Hotohori's great-grandson or whatever is pretty cute. ^_^

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	12. Chapter 12

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: Duh the characters don't belong to us, for one thing, I can't draw at all and Ning's look, well, much improvement is needed to reach that kind of standard. Think of all the fun we could have if they belonged to us though... (several anime characters vomit blood, others drop dead in fright, the rest decide to carry out mass suicide.) Anyway, don't sue us cause we're still students. Also, we tend to procrastinate, so you'll be wasting your time trying to get us to pay up. Ü

Last Revised: 03/08/2001

By the way, this is just a rough draft. We haven't had the chance to send it for proofreading yet, so expect some errors.

**| Chapter 12 |**

Raiha and Joker had managed to find their way down the stairs safely, considering that it was pretty dark even with a light. They stood on a smooth stone floor, trying to find a way out.

"Raiha-han, are you sure this is the place?" Joker asked warily. "There doesn't seem to be a way out."

Raiha swept the light around. "I think there's an exit somewhere, it just needs to be found."

*Crash!*

The two assassins spun round at the sound.

"What was that?" Raiha exclaimed.

"I think it came from that wall," Joker pointed at the far corner before walking over to it. "Maybe that's the exit."

Raiha joined him and ran one hand over the stone surface, trying to see if there was any indication of a secret latch. To his surprise, the wall was warm, as thought there was a heat source on the other side.

"Joker-han, the wall's warm!"

"Strange, what could be heating it up?" Joker muttered softly.

After pushing all the bricks on the wall for what seemed like an eternity, the two of them were ready to abandon the idea that the wall was an exit.

"Forget it, let's go try the other walls," Joker said exasperatedly. He felt he had enough of walls that seemed to have a life of their own. The two of them turned around and prepared to walk to another wall when they heard a click and a slight grinding noise.

An opening had appeared in the wall. In front of the opening was a fireplace in which a fire blazed merrily. They looked at each other, and walked back to the wall. To their surprise, they found that there was a rather wide space between the wall and the fireplace which led to the room in front of them.

"Hey, isn't that Kurei-sama?" Joker asked, pointing at the back of a figure they could see through the dancing flames.

"Let's go join him," Raiha stepped through the opening, followed by Joker. The figure at the table turned around suddenly as they stepped into the room, which was obviously the study.

"Who's there?" Kurei demanded sharply.

"Kurei-sama, it's us,"Raiha replied smoothly as they appeared in front of the fireplace.

"Whoa, watch where you're going, Raiha-han," Joker cautioned as he pulled Raiha back by his sleeve, just in time before the ninja stepped on a portrait on the floor.

Kurei walked over to them. "How did you manage to get here? And how did you get in?"

Joker answered, "This lady with silver hair told us that you were here, and gave us directions to get here."

"Lady?" Kurei frowned. "The only person I saw who had sliver hair was a little girl who showed me how to get here."

Raiha was puzzled. "Strange, she also knew your name." He looked down at the painting at his feet. "She looks like the one in the painting there." He pointed at it.

Kurei bent down. "This wasn't the painting I saw just now," he muttered to himself. Instead of the lady alone, he saw what looked like a family portrait. A family of four posed against a background of a heavy brocade. A couple sat with a little boy on their knees. Behind them stood a teenage girl with silver hair. She wore a smile on her face as she stared at the viewer with her large violet eyes. All were dressed in strange clothes.

Kurei picked up the portrait with difficulty and turned it over. Faintly visible across the back was the date of the painting, wirtten in a spidery hand.

"17--," Kurei strained to see the numbers, but they were obliterated by the years.

Raiha said in a puzzled tone, "Wait a minute, if she's the one we saw, how come she still looks so... young?"

"Raiha-han, *young* is like the understatement of the year. If this painting is correct, she's..." Joker began.

He never got to complete his sentence as the ceiling suddenly gave way with a loud crack. The two Uruha and their employer were drowned by dust, wooden splinters, and plaster. The next instant, two decidedly heavy objects fell with a dull thud on top of the mound that was assorted rubble, Joker, Raiha and Kurei.

"Ughhh..." Genjurou muttered as he painfully clambered back to his feet, his aching joints and muscles reminding him how ancient he actually was.

"GENJUROU?!?! NOROI?!?!" Joker exclaimed in pure surprise.

"Itai..."

"Hn."

'The more the merrier... humph!'

"......"

"What the hell was that for?!?!" Joker demanded. "Look, my helmet is dented beyond repair! Do you know how much one of these things cost?!"

Meanwhile, somewhere in a locked room...

"Mokuren..."

"Mikoto..."

Mikoto and Mokuren were totally engrossed in doing naughty things to each other, when they heard someone cough politely behind them. Several times, in fact.

*Ahem* *ahem*

Mikoto turned and glared at the source of noise behind her. Her jaw dropped as she saw the door wide open. And was it her imagination, or did she also catch a glimpse of silver hair blown in the wind? Mikoto shook her head, and threw her clothes on before rushing out the door.

"Mikoto..."

Somewhere along a corridor...

Rasen was trying to cope unsuccessfully with his headache. He began to wish that he had a voice, so that he could give the loony idots around him a piece of his mind. Kirin had, thankfully, stopped singing, but Neon and Jisho were arguing with each other, *again*.

Rasen and Kirin rounded the corner, followed closely by Neon and Jisho, and got another shock. There was a little girl curled up on a window seat, staring out of a window covered with so much dust and grime it was a wonder if anything could be seen. Her silver hair covered her arms and she seemed oblivious to their presence. Neon and Jisho were too busy arguing to notice that the two people in front of them had stopped walking, so, of course, they walked smack into them.

"Why did you two stop walking in the middle of..." Neon trailed off as she saw the object of their attention.

Kirin walked up to the girl and knelt beside her. "Are you lost?" she asked in concern.

The girl looked up and stared at Kirin with a pair of purple eyes that seemed too big for her face. She replied in a mature voice, "No, but I think you are."

Neon was very curious about how this girl knew about their problem. Plus, how did she get into the house? She joined Kirin and asked gently, "Who are you, and how did you get into this place?"

The girl jumped off the seat lightly and stood in the middle of the hallway. "You  don't need to know about that. Your friends are in the library, I'll take you there if you'll follow me." She waited for a response.

Kirin took a good look at the girl. She looked like she had come from another time. Her white dress fell around her ankles and revealed her bare feet. A strange pendent glowed with a blue light from around her neck. Automatically, Kirin tried to read her mind. To her surprise, she could not seem to sense anything. It was as though the girl was blocking off her Shingan.

Jisho decided that since they had an offer of a guide, it was too good to be given up on. He answered on behalf of the group, "Lead the way."

They set off down the corridor, following the strange girl.

"Man... this is the pits!" Joker grumbled as he tried fruitlessly to right his helmet.

The other three ignored him. Genjurou was searching in vain for information on the cloning processes that had been in progress, and Kurei and Raiha were discussing something in low voices.

"ARGHHH!!! Stupid thing!" Joker glared at the offending object and threw it.

It landed with a clang just in front of the doorway, where it was promptly squashed by a stampede of four Uruha assassins. Said Uruha assassins all fell in a graceless heap at the sweatdropping Joker's feet.

"Urghh... Jisho, you ox, get off me!" Neon shrieked, trying to extract herself from the bottom of the heap.

"Kirin, stop kicking me in the face!" Jisho growled at the lucky Kirin who was at the very top of the pile.

"......" was Rasen's contribution, translated as 'Kirin, would you *please* get off me?!'

"ARGHHH!!! My poor darling helmet!!!"

*massive sweatdropping*

Before the mountain that was four Uruha assassins could begin to sort itself out, Mikoto and Mokuren ran into the library. Or rather, Mikoto ran in and Mokuren was chasing her. Once again, they tripped over the poor already extremely dented helmet and landed with a loud thud.

"Oof!" Neon muttered as her burden suddenly increased due to the weight of two more Uruha assassins.

"Will you just get off?!" Jisho finally yelled.

"Itaiii..."

"My helmet! Oh my poor helmet!"

Finally...

Kurei sighed as he inspected the ten Uruha members that stood in a rough semicircle around him. What a mottley crew they were. Full of weird quirks and incompetent too.

Starting from his far left, Noroi, one of the only ones behaving with some semblance to normalcy, was stoning. Genjurou beside him had his face permanently glued to some dusty and moth-eaten old tome that made Kurei want to sneeze. The thought of reading that book was enough to put Kurei to sleep. Beside the loony old man, Mokuren was groping Mikoto, who was examining her nails. Apparently they had been scratched by Joker's helmet, or so she claimed. Beside the busy pair, Joker was blubbering over the damage to his helmet as he hugged it. Next to the rasta-braided punk, Neon and Jisho were arguing. Again. Raiha was trying to play peacekeeper next to them with little success. At the far right, which was also next to Raiha, Kirin was trying to cling onto Rasen.

'What a bunch...' Kurenai said, effectively summoning up Kurei's thoughts.

Kurei sighed.

TBC…

Author's note: This is the beginning of the end! Yay! It was starting to get draggy because we couldn't think up of any more freaky and weird stuff. ^_^ It'll end in the next chapter. Yay! I don't think it really qualifies for epic status. Epics ought to have more chapters. Anyway, I'm glad it's finishing, although I really had fun writing it. I must say, this part is rather crappy, what with Joker and his 'precious' helmet. ^_^

I'm seriously beginning to think that Shakespeare was gay. Ughh… no offence to anyone who likes Shakespeare. Actually, I hate the Bard, but that's beside the point. We're actually doing Julius Caesar for literature and it's so boring! Or it was until we got to the part where Brutus and Cassius quarreled like little kids. That was pretty funny. ^_^ But Cassius and Brutus have a very *interesting* relationship… the stuff that Cassius says is so… ughhh! Cassius, like, craves Brutus' affection or something like that. Robert Wilkes said that, not me. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. ^_^ It sounds very gay. No, actually, most of the play sounds gay. *sweatdrop*

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


	13. Chapter 13

**|| Flame of Recca: The Spirits Within (The House) ||**

| En | Ning |

Disclaimer: Duh the characters don't belong to us, for one thing, I can't draw at all and Ning's look, well, much improvement is needed to reach that kind of standard. Think of all the fun we could have if they belonged to us though... (several anime characters vomit blood, others drop dead in fright, the rest decide to carry out mass suicide.) Anyway, don't sue us cause we're still students. Also, we tend to procrastinate, so you'll be wasting your time trying to get us to pay up. Ü

Last Revised: 03/08/2001

By the way, this is just a rough draft. We haven't had the chance to send it for proofreading yet, so expect some errors.

**| Chapter 13 |**

Mori Kouran chuckled slightly from behind the desk in his gloomy study. The antics of the Uruha over the past couple of hours had been broadcast 'live' on the enormous screen hung on the wall behind the desk. Mori Kouran had to admit that the Uruha were entertaining to say the least, what with all the falling and talking to the air. His misgivings about the mental state of the Uruha were justified when he saw them talking to some lady which he couldn't see on the tape. If he had been the kind of man to laugh, he would have been guffawing continuously. As it was, he contented himself with evil chuckles.

The thin, aging man standing nervously in front of the desk cleared his throat. "Is it a deal?"

Mori Kouran stared at the television screen for one long minute before turning back and nodding. "Deal."

The man bowed. "Very well. Sign this. I will contact you soon regarding the details."

Mori Kouran signed his name with a flourish and handed the paper back to the sweating man who bowed once again as he thanked Mori Kouran effusively.

The aides showed the man out, and Mori Kouran turned his attention back to the screen. He chuckled evilly as he imagined the reactions and expressions of the Uruha when they found out that their little escapade in the haunted mansion would soon be released as a major motion picture. And that the haunted house was no more haunted than the Uruha mansion. Mori Kouran smirked at the thought and allowed himself an evil, gloating laugh.

Back at the 'haunted' mansion...

Kurei gritted his teeth and said, "Forget it. I don't see any reason why this stupid house is haunted. We're going back now!" Personally, he had a suspicion that this was one of his adopted father's waarped versions of having fun.

Genjuro grunted something and turned the page of the book. The rest of the Uruha continued arguing.

Kurei was about to lose his patience and cremate all of them on the spot to save the people at the creamatorium the trouble when he suddenly felt a gentle breeze sweeping through the enclosed library. It was apparent that the others felt it as well as they stopped talking.

The wind brushed their faces gently and swirled towards a dark corner. Kirin gasped and pointed, "Look! There's someone there!"

True enough, a figure of a lady had appeared in the shadows. A strange, blue glow was emitted from a circular object about the size of a child's palm. The blue light lighted up a white dress and the lower half of the lady's face and hair faintly.

Kurei asked sharply, "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Her lips moved slightly as the wind swirled around them again. They heard a faint but strangely familiar voice whispering, "I'm Yume. The way out of the mansion is in the book the old man is holding."

The wind rustled the pages of Gnjuro's book, flipping them towards the middle of the book where there was a yellow piece of paper folded and tucked into the book. Genjuro took the paper out and unfolded it, realising at once that it was the floor plan of the house.

Kurei turned his attention back to the lady in the corner, intending to ask her how she had known that. Instead, he found that there was nothing in the corner, only the shadows. He frowned slightly but decided that since she had shown them how to get out of the stupid house, he would let the matter pass.

"Come on, let's get out of here," he told the assassins as he took the map from Genjuro and walked out of the study. The rest followed closely behind, Genjuro hanging on to the oh-so-interesting book he had picked up.

As Raiha, who was the last to leave, walked out of the study, he turned to take a last look at the room. To his surprise, he saw the silver-haired lady, who had shown him and Joker how to get to the library, standing beside the fireplace. She raised her head and returned his gaze, an almost hopeful look in her eyes.

"Raiha! Hurry up! You don't want to get left behind do you?" He heard Kirin calling as they turned a corner, Kurenai illuminating the way.

The silver-haired lady smiled slightly and nodded imperceptibly, as though telling him to go. She raised a hand in farewell as the tudy mysteriously shut between both of them. Raiha ran off to rejoin his colleagues.

'So her name's Yume,' he mused to himself. 'I wonder why she didn't want to tell us that from the start.'

By some miracle, the Uruha managed to get out of the mansion, considering that the sense of direction some of them possessed was, well, non-existent. The supposedly jammed door had been 'un-jammed' while the case of the disappearing pathway had solved itself and the pathway was back in its original position.

The weary Uruha piled into their bus and braced themselves for another nerve-wrecking ride back, thanks to Rasen's wonderful driving skills. Kirin leaned out of the window to take a last look at the towers of the mansion as they left. After all, it was not everyday that one got to claim the 'privilege' of having visited a haunted mansion. She thought she saw something white at the window but dismissed it as the reflection of the setting sun.

A silver haired lady in a white dress stood by one of the tower windows which faced the Uruha bus - Yume. She had kept a close watch on them as they made their way out of the house, except that they did not know she was watching them. Now, she watched them boarding the bus at the foot of the hill, getting ready to return to wherever they had come from.

She saw the girl who had asked her if she was lost lean out of the window of the moving bus. She looked up in Yume's direction. Yume did not move out of sight as she was sure that the girl would not be able to see her clearly from that distance. She continued to stare at the spot the bus had occupied, even after the bus had lurched out of sight.

Finally, she gave a strange smile and leaned her head against the stone wall next to the window. The breeze grew to a strong wind which tugged insistently at her hair. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The wind whipped her silver hair across her face as she faded slowly into the setting sun, leaving the tower empty, as it had been for so many years.

TBC…

Author's note: Yess!!! We've finished!!! Yess!!! *mad cheering*

Okay, I know we didn't exactly resolve anything, particularly about the silver-haired girl, Yume. Truth is, she's a mystery, even to us. Maybe we'll write another fic that'll be about her. But we're not going to write another joint fic so soon. I need to recover my creative juices. ^_^ What with doing people's autographs, drawing, writing fanfic and trying to write a fantasy story, I'm kind of out of creativity. ^_^

Oh, but En's writing a fic about Yukionna, a descendent of Yume. I'm really looking forward to reading it, so Okama-san, please write faster!!! ^_^

Lastly, arigato Kai for proofreading (our spelling is rather atrocious) and giving suggestions.

Ning.


End file.
